Pol Pot died on April 15, 1998 at the age of 73 — seemingly from heart failure, though rumors of suicide or even murder began to spread in the aftermath.

By the time Pol Pot died in 1998, the genocidal dictator had left irreversible scars on Cambodia. Between 1975 and 1979, the country was at the mercy of his ruthless regime, one that sought to exterminate anyone considered an “enemy.” Under the rule of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge movement, an estimated two million people — nearly a quarter of the population — died from starvation, overwork, disease, and mass execution.

Cities were emptied, religion was outlawed, and families were torn apart in the name of building a supposedly utopian agrarian society. Pol Pot was the architect of “Year Zero,” a movement that promised equality but inste

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