Khmer Rouge guerrillas have put on display the body of Pol Pot, dispelling any doubt that the shadowy revolutionary leader whose four-year reign of terror turned Cambodia into a showcase of genocide, is dead.
Hours after a Khmer Rouge cadre first reported Pol Pot's death late on Wednesday night, journalists gained access to a spartan wooden hut near the border with Thailand, reeking of formaldehyde, where they were shown a corpse they confirmed was Pol Pot.
The 73-year old former Khmer Rouge leader lay on a mattress clothed in simple blue cotton smock, his head supported by a pink pillow and surrounded by garlands of purple flowers, his face betraying no emotion and the body no visible wounds or signs of injury. His hands lay limply at his side, cotton wool stuck in his nose, a blanket covered his feet and plastic flip-flop sandals lay neatly beside the bed.
Pol Pot's wife and daughter were among a small group present in the hut along with five Khmer Rouge soldiers but despite what journalists said was a sombre atmosphere there was no show of official mourning or private grief.
"At 12 midnight his wife came to us, she learned that her husband was dead when she went to tie his [mosquito] net, Mr Nuon Nou, a Khmer Rouge guard assigned to Pol Pot reported.
Authorities in the capital cautiously declined any comment before they had independent confirmation of the death.
"Whoever has the body should hand it to the government so we can check," a government spokesman, Mr Khieu Kanharith, said. "We need the body." For the moment, however, the Khmer Rouge led by Mr Ta Mok, the notorious one-legged commander who took control of the guerrilla group last year, is considering holding a simple cremation ceremony at the border in three days time.
The causes of death will continue to be a matter of intense speculation. "It's just so timely, it came just when it was supposed to come," a western diplomat said, echoing the scepticism about any version of events supplied by the utterly ruthless guerrilla organisation.
The extraordinary glare of publicity now accorded his corpse contrasts with the veil of mystery and secrecy with which Khmer Rouge leaders habitually screen their activities and which hid Pol Pot from public view for most of his career since he took up leadership of the Khmer Rouge in the early 1960s.
Diplomats speculate the Khmer Rouge may hope their former leader's exit will help clear obstacles to negotiating some form of peace deal with the government.
Pol Pot's death from natural causes is entirely plausible, given his age and recent bouts of illness and malaria. At a show trial after his overthrow last year, Pol Pot could hardly walk unaided.
But his "heart attack" occurred barely a fortnight after mass defections forced Mr Ta Mok to abandon most of Anlong Veng, the sprawling base camp in northern Cambodia that has served as the guerrillas' last remaining stronghold.
With only several hundred, perhaps a thousand, fighters under his command, Mr Ta Mok and other Khmer Rouge leaders were forced to withdraw to the Dongrek mountains near the border with Thailand. Unconfirmed reports have suggested Mr Ta Mok may already be in Thailand.
The internal ructions in the Khmer Rouge spurred greater interest on the part of the US administration in the possibility of spiriting Pol Pot away to custody as a first step to bringing him to trial for crimes against humanity.
Cambodian leaders and foreign analysts said they did not discount the possibility the Khmer Rouge murdered him to escape pressure to hand him over for trial.
Pol Pot's death, analysts note, will also suit governments such as China, strongly opposed to seeing its former protegee put on trial and Thailand, reluctant to become involved in turning him over to foreign powers.
It may also relieve the former Khmer Rouge cadres long established in the Phnom Penh government or among those like the former Pol Pot intimate, Mr Ieng Sary, who have negotiated separate deals with the government.
The US may in theory be interested in bringing other former and present Khmer Rouge leaders, including Mr Ta Mok, its nominal president Mr Khieu Samphan, to trial. In practice diplomats question whether there is sufficient international interest to offset the political and legal complexities.
Reuters reports from Phnom Penh:
On the eve of the 23rd anniversary of the Khmer Rouge's takeover of Phnom Penh, residents of the capital expressed a mixture of relief and bitterness.
Many regretted that the dictator who turned their country into a vast, brutal work camp had managed to evade justice, while others still refused to believe he was dead.
"I don't believe he's dead yet," said Mr Chey Sopheara, the director of the Toul Sleng genocide museum.
Toul Sleng was a former Phnom Penh high school which became an interrogation centre under Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge government.
More than 15,000 people, most of them Khmer Rouge cadres purged by Pol Pot, passed through the school en route to their deaths.
"I suffered. My father, my brother and my brother-in-law were killed during Pol Pot's regime. If Pol Pot is really dead he will be judged in hell," Mr Chey Sopheara said.