Khieu Samphan
Khieu Samphan was born on July 27, 1931. See ranking, bio blurb, and everyone else born that day.
About Khieu Samphan
Khieu Samphan (Khmer: ខៀវ សំផន; born 27 July 1931) is a Cambodian former politician, economist, and revolutionary who was Chairman of the State Presidium of Democratic Kampuchea from 1976 until 1979. As such, he served as Cambodia's head of state and was one of the most powerful officials in the Khmer Rouge movement, although Pol Pot remained the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. On 7 August 2014, along with other members of the regime, he was convicted and received a life sentence for crimes against humanity during the Cambodian genocide, and a further trial found him guilty of genocide in 2018. Prior to joining the Khmer Rouge, he was a member of Norodom Sihanouk's Sangkum government. After the 1967 leftist rebellion, Sihanouk ordered the arrest of leftists including Samphan, who fled into hiding until the Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975. Samphan succeeded Pol Pot as leader of the Khmer Rouge in 1985, and served in this position until 1998. With the death of Kang Kek Iew in 2020, Samphan became the last living senior Khmer Rouge official.