The only daughter of deceased Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot is due to be married on Sunday in Banteay Meanchey Province, according to a copy of the wedding invitation.
Sar Patchata is the only daughter of Pol Pot, whose real name was Sar Saloth, and Mea Som. The invitation names the groom as Sy Vicheka.
Ms. Patchata’s stepfather, Tep Khunnal, said his stepdaughter is now 26 years old and that the couple met during their studies in Malaysia.
“My daughter graduated with a master’s degree in English literature in Malaysia and the groom was also studying in Malaysia, so they knew each other while they were studying,” said Mr. Khunnal, who declined to comment further about the wedding.
Pol Pot had no children with his first wife, Khieu Ponnary, and married Mea Som in the mid-1980s after the Khmer Rouge had been toppled by the invading Vietnamese and while holding out as the leader of his guerilla movement along the Thai-Cambodia border.
Ms. Patchata, born Mea Sith, would have been born in the late 1980s. By the time of Pol Pot’s death in 1998 of a reported heart attack, Khmer Rouge forces numbered little more than 1,000 and soon fell apart amid the last spate of defections to the government.
Mr. Khunnal, who was the Khmer Rouge ambassador to the U.N. under Pol Pot, married Mea Som within a year of her husband’s death and later served as Malai district governor.
District police chief Sao Bun said he planned to be among the guests at Sunday’s wedding.
“I was invited to Tep Khunnal’s daughter’s wedding party,” he said. “He is the former Malai district governor, so I hope a lot of people will attend the ceremony.”
In a 2004 interview with The Cambodia Daily, Ms. Patchata said she had fond memories of her father but no ambitions of studying abroad as he had. At the time, then studying in Sisophon town, she said her goal was to return to Malai district to help her mother and stepfather run their rice mill and guesthouse.
Pol Pot’s top surviving henchmen, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, are now on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. A verdict in the first phase of their case, focusing on the 1975 forced evacuation of Phnom Penh, is due in the coming months.
Link to source: http://www.cambodiadaily.com/
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