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PHOM PENH - A former Khmer Rouge commander who masterminded the abduction and murder of three Western backpackers in 1994, has died, his wife said on Saturday.
Sam Bith, 74, the most senior of the three ultra-Maoist guerrillas convicted in 2002 of abducting Briton Mark Slater, Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet and Australian David Wilson during a train ambush in southern Cambodia, died in a Phnom Penh hospital on Friday.
Sam Bith, who has been in and out of hospital with a variety of illnesses in the past few years, denied any involvement but lost his appeal in 2006. His lawyer had said he was in a Thai hospital at the time of the attack.
"I spent all my money on his medical treatments in the last three years," his wife Khim Ry, 56, told Reuters at the hospital.
She said she could not afford to transport her husband's body to his home village in the northwestern province of Battambang.
Information Minister Khieu Kanharith confirmed Sam Bith's death, but declined further comment.
About a dozen Cambodians died in the ambush on the train. The three backpackers were taken hostage and held in a Khmer Rouge mountain stronghold for about three months before being shot during a rescue attempt by government troops.
Nuon Paet and Chhouk Rin, who both served under Sam Bith, are serving life sentences for their part in the murders.
A United Nations-backed tribunal has detaining five senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime which ruled the country from 1975-79 during which an estimated 1.7 million died.
The trials are expected to begin in July.
- REUTERS
