A United Nations-backed court in Cambodia has sentenced two former top Khmer Rouge leaders to life in prison.
The pair were found guilty of crimes against humanity in their roles in the Khmer Rouge regime which left an estimated two-million people dead in the 1970s.
The sentences come almost three-and-a-half decades after the genocidal rule of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge ended.
The historic verdicts were announced against the regime's 83-year-old former head of state, Khieu Samphan and the man known as "Brother Number Two", 88-year-old Nuon Chea.
The tribunal's chief judge Nil Nonn asked both men to rise for the verdicts but the frail Nuon Chea said he was too weak to stand from his wheelchair and was allowed to remain seated.
"The trial chamber finds the accused, Nuon Chea, guilty of the crimes against humanity, of extermination, encompassing murder, political persecution and other inhumane acts, comprising forced transfer, enforced disappearances, and attacks against human dignity, committed within the territory of Cambodia, between 17 April 1975 and December 1977."
Chief judge Nil Nonn said Khieu Samphan was being convicted on identical charges, then delivered the sentences.
"The chamber sentences the accused, Nuon Chea, to life imprisonment. The chamber sentences the accused, Khieu Samphan, to life imprisonment."
Their lawyers say the pair will appeal the convictions.
However, the judge said the gravity of the crimes means they will remain in detention while this happens.
Nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population died under the rule of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 to 1979, through a combination of starvation, medical neglect, overwork and execution.
The outcome of the two-year trial of Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea is likely to bring a measure of justice to those who survived the Khmer Rouge years.
A few dozen survivors, many from far-flung rural provinces, arrived early to join hundreds of Cambodians at the Phnom Penh-based court to watch the verdicts and sentences.
This man was among the survivors.
"(through translation) I thank the court for sentencing these two former Khmer Rouge leaders to life in prison. I am very much satisfied with this decision because I suffered so much when I was a prisoner under that regime."
The defendants had throughout the trial denied knowledge of the regime's crimes during the era.
But both eventually expressed a level of remorse for the suffering inflicted on the Cambodian people by the Khmer Rouge.
The current trial began in November 2011 and started out with four former Khmer Rouge leaders.
The group's top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.
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