‘First Lady’ of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge dies at 83

This file photo taken on May 21, 2008 shows former Khmer Rouge minister Ieng Thirith, in court at the Extraodinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC) in Phnom Penh. - AFP PHOTO / FILES / Heng Sinith

PHNOM PENH, Aug 22, 2015 (AFP) - The former "first lady" of Cambodia’s murderous Khmer Rouge regime died Saturday, according to a UN-backed tribunal, without victims ever seeing her face trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Ieng Thirith, a French-educated revolutionary who was 83 when she died, was one of the few women in the leadership of the communist movement behind the horrors of the "Killing Fields" era.