In Foreign Parts: How 'brother number three,' architect of the Killing Fields, lives a life of luxury in the new Cambodia

The name Ieng Sary still strikes fear into the heart of Cambodians. "Brother Number Three" in the Khmer Rouge hierarchy, he was an architect of the 1975-79 "Killing Fields" regime under which a quarter of the population perished.

Now 72, Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, 70, are living out their twilight years in a luxury villa tucked away in a leafy back street of Phnom Penh. Their neighbours in the quiet residential district include numerous families whose relatives were murdered by the Khmer Rouge. The couple are often seen strolling in local markets or dining in the capital's finest restaurants.

Twenty-three years after the Khmer Rouge were overthrown, the regime's surviving leaders have yet to face trial for the reign of terror during which an estimated 1.7 million people died. Pol Pot died in 1998, but Ieng Sary, once his foreign minister, is at liberty, as are his second in command, Brother Number Two, Nuon Chea, and Khieu Samphan, the head of state at the time.

Long-standing efforts to establish an international genocide tribunal were revived last month when a United Nations committee approved a resolution giving the secretary general, Kofi Annan, a mandate to resume negotiations with the Cambodian government.

Talks on the make-up and procedures of a tribunal were broken off in February by UN officials, who accused Cambodia of lacking the political will to conduct free and fair trials.

The Khmer Rouge seized power after years of civil war, fighting its way from the jungles of the north-east to the streets of Phnom Penh. The leaders emptied the cities and towns as part of a radical experiment to transform Cambodia into a Maoist agrarian society, earning themselves a reputation as one of the 20th century's most brutal regimes.

Hundreds of thousands of people were tortured and then executed at the mouth of mass graves on the outskirts of the capital, in an area that became known as the Killing Fields. Others, torn from their families and forced to labour in the countryside, died of starvation or disease.

Few Cambodians were untouched and, as far as Ieng Sary's neighbours are concerned, prosecutions are long overdue. "He killed our parents and made us orphans," said one woman, gazing up at the imposing villa, shaded by mango trees and high walls. She told the Cambodia Daily newspaper: "We can't forget. We suffered so much."

Both Ieng Sary and his wife, who was minister for social affairs, were members of Pol Pot's inner circle. Like their colleagues, they made a fortune from gem mining and logging in the Thai border areas that became the stronghold of the Khmer Rouge once it was ousted. Once harsh critics of capitalism, the couple live a privileged life in one of South-east Asia's poorest cities, travelling frequently to Bangkok for health checks.

Another of their neighbours, Pov Than, said the Khmer Rouge had killed his brother and sister-in-law and their children. "By my thoughts, the leaders must be tried," he told the Cambodia Daily. "But a trial depends on the [current political] leaders. So it is useless for us to talk about that." Many Cambodians share his scepticism, pointing out that senior government figures were once linked with the Khmer Rouge and are reluctant to see the past dug up. They include the Prime Minister, Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge cadre who, like many of his comrades, defected to Vietnam.

Cambodia has shown little appetite for confronting the past since the Khmer Rouge was toppled by Vietnamese forces. The subject is rarely discussed, and the school curriculum contains little about the Pol Pot era. Efforts to establish a genocide tribunal began five years ago, but the path has proved long and tortuous. The draft resolution is expected to be approved by the UN General Assembly, but many countries are unhappy that it was watered down to placate Phnom Penh and gives Cambodia's corrupt courts the final say.

Stephen Heder, a Cambodia scholar at the University of London, said: "The resolution does not even ask the Cambodian government to live up to the very minimum international standard for a fair trial, much less build in guarantees that those standards will be adhered to." But with many former Khmer Rouge commanders elderly and in deterioriating health, time is running out and the UN has warned that the latest moves may be the last chance to bring them to account.

Some Cambodians believe the country is paralysed by its failure to deal with its recent past. Youk Chhang, the director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, which has amassed a huge archive of material relating to that era, told Cambodia Daily that until the former leaders were put on trial "the past presents a roadblock for the future of Cambodia".