Cambodian Khmer Rouge’s Chief Ideologist, ‘Brother Number Two’, Dead at 93

Nuon Chea, Pol Pot's right hand man of the Khmer Rouge regime,sits in the dock during his first public appearance at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) on the outskirts of Phnom Penh Feb. 4, 2008. Chor Sokunthea/Reuters

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia—Nuon Chea, the chief ideologist and “Brother Number Two” of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, whose brutal rule in the 1970s led to the deaths of some 2 million people, died on Aug. 4 at the age of 93, a court spokesman said.

A U.N.-backed court found Chea guilty of genocide and sentenced him to life in prison last year, almost four decades after the Maoist regime which oversaw Cambodia’s “Killing Fields” was overthrown.