Genocide charges for two former Khmer Rouge leaders

A UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia has for the first time charged two former Khmer Rouge leaders with genocide.

A court official said the charges against Ieng Sary and Nuon Chea relate to their treatment of Cambodia's Vietnamese and Muslim minorities.

The two men are already in pre-trial detention charged with crimes against humanity, but it is thought their trial will not start until 2011.

The two men were both high-ranking members of Pol Pot's government in the late 1970s.

A court official confirmed that the allegations were the related to the treatment of two minority groups: Cham Muslims and ethnic Vietnamese people.