The Thai military said yesterday an examination of the body of former Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, architect of Cambodia's "killing fields" regime, revealed no outward evidence of wounds.
Their verification of Pol Pot's death came as the Cambodian government demanded a post mortem to confirm his identity and the United States and Australia said they remained committed to seeing other Khmer Rouge leaders brought to justice.
Khmer Rouge guerrillas said Pol Pot, held responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians during his 1975-79 communist rule, died of a heart attack late on Wednesday. He was 73.
A Thai military team, which did not include a doctor, visited a hut in a north Cambodian village about two miles from the Thai border to examine Pol Pot's body and found no wounds, a senior Thai army officer said yesterday.
"We sent a team this morning to examine his body and to talk to people in the area. The purpose was to make sure that it was really him. And we are sure it is," Col Ruangporn Rojanarod said.
"But we have no medical capacity to say that he died of heart failure or not," he added.
Journalists witnessed the team take hair and fingerprint samples from the body and numerous photographs. Blocks of ice were placed on and around the corpse, which was partially wrapped in a thick plastic sheet.
Thai military sources said they had been informed by the Khmer Rouge that Pol Pot's body would be cremated today at the village.
King Norodom Sihanouk said yesterday Pol Pot's death had "liberated" Cambodia and hoped it would bring peace to his troubled land. King Sihanouk strongly opposed the Khmer Rouge when they were little more than an underground movement of extreme communists in the early 1960s. But he was virtually placed under house arrest during Pol Pot's years in power.
In the 1980s the king led an anti-Vietnamese coalition which included the Khmer Rouge and republicans.
Meanwhile, the UN is forging ahead with plans to try the Khmer Rouge leadership for genocide despite the death of Pol Pot and has appointed an international jurist to lead a team to assess available evidence. Mr Rajsoomer Lallah, the former chief justice of Mauritius, has been named to head the three-person team.
France has announced its willingness to co-operate in bringing Khmer Rouge members to justice.
Journalists were allowed by the Khmer Rouge to photograph and film Pol Pot's body on Thursday. But Cambodian officials insisted that pictures alone were not sufficient proof of his death.
"We saw only the photographs, not by ourselves. There has been no autopsy," said secretary of state for information Mr Khieu Kanarith. "We want the body for autopsy or they can hand it over to any independent medical team," he said.
A Thai newspaper reported yesterday that Thailand has willing to send a team to see Pol Pot's body and verify his death to the Cambodian government.
Just before he died, the Khmer Rouge were reported to be trying to negotiate a deal to hand him over for trial.
King Sihanouk said yesterday: "Let him be dead. Now our nation will be very peaceful." On Thursday President Clinton, recalling the victims of Pol Pot's "monstrous crimes", promised to bring remaining senior Khmer Rouge leaders to justice.
"Although the opportunity to hold Pol Pot accountable for his monstrous crimes appears to have passed, senior Khmer Rouge, who exercised leadership from 1975 to 1979, are still at large and share responsibility for the monstrous human rights abuses committed during this period," Mr Clinton, on a state visit in Chile, said in a statement released by the White House.
"We must not permit the death of the most notorious of the Khmer Rouge leaders to deter us from the equally important task of bringing these others to justice." Washington is a key player in efforts to stabilise Cambodia, which was ravaged in the Cold War's proxy battles.
State Department spokesman Mr James Rubin said the US government was awaiting final confirmation that Pol Pot was dead, but added it had no reason to doubt "compelling images" of a body identified as that of Pol Pot shown on television.
He said Washington agreed with the Cambodian Prime Minister, Mr Hun Sen, that the body should be subject to an autopsy to confirm the identity and to establish the cause of death.
But in Long Beach, California, home to about 50,000 Cambodians, Rena Bo of the United Cambodian Community was cynical about the Khmer Rouge announcement: "I think this is just their game again. I don't believe it until I see his body in front of me, dead."
The Australian Foreign Minister, Mr Alexander Downer, said yesterday Pol Pot's death was a reminder of the need for an international criminal court and added his country remained committed to seeing other Khmer Rouge leaders brought to justice.
An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died under Pol Pot's rule, victims of starvation and hard labour, or executed as enemies of his ultra-communist revolution.
Pol Pot was purged from the leadership last year at a show trial by his group's military commander Ta Mok, who now leads the Khmer Rouge.
Pol Pot was under house arrest when he died having been sentenced to life imprisonment.
"There is no reason to mourn the worst tyrant of our time. The world wishes Pol Pot could have faced a genocide tribunal, Cambodians wish he never was born," the Bangkok Post said.
Television footage of the body of Pol Pot was beamed around the world, but in Cambodia his death gained hardly a mention.
Pictures of Pol Pot's body were not broadcast on Cambodian television and only one Cambodian-language newspaper reported his death yesterday.