From the Well-He-Would-Say-That-Dept:

A former senior figure within Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge has told a court he and his comrades were not “bad people,” denying the regime’s responsibility for the deaths of 1.7 million people during their 1970s rule and blaming Vietnam for any atrocities.

Nuon Chea’s defiant statements came as a UN-backed tribunal began questioning him and two other Khmer Rouge leaders in court for the first time on Monday.