But even in death, Pol Pot remains shrouded in mystery.

The Phnom Penh government is still awaiting more conclusive evidence before pronouncing the most feared and hated leader of the Khmer Rouge regime dead, even as the two journalists who had interviewed him last year confirmed the pictures of the corpse, released by KR officials in Thailand, were indeed those of the man they had met.

The ailing dictator who had been responsible for the deaths of over a million people, or one-fourth of the country's population, in the ``killing fields'' of Cambodia during the 1970s, had lately been the focus of a mounting campaign for his extradition and trial before an international human rights tribunal.

Many critics accuse the Western nations behind this campaign of duplicity, asthey were the ones who bestowed legitimacy on the Pol Pot regime at a time when they should have been aiding the efforts to dismantle it.

The United States in particular, had recently tried to win regional support for its plans to bring the 70-plus Pol Pot to trial on charges of genocide – a gross and opportunistic reversal of its stance two decades ago.

The Americans are not the only opportunists in this game. The Thais too, have been accused of adopting a hypocritical approach. While vehemently denying that they would allow the ailing Khmer leader to cross over to their country, they have in the past shut their eyes to infiltrations by armed guerrillas from the KR ranks.

However, in the past year, the Khmer Rouge had begun to dissipate from within. With more than 3,000 defections to the Cambodian government side since March, culminating in the recent capture of the Khmer Rouge ``capital'' at Anlong Veng, 15 km (nine miles) from the Thai border, hardline Khmer Rouge guerrillas have been forced toretreat into nearby mountains.

Pol Pot held sway over this disintegrating clan with little of the aplomb and awe-inspiring presence he had commanded way back in the seventies. The so-called Communist leader, who ostensibly modelled himself after Mao, ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, unleashing a reign of terror unparalleled in recent times.

He was sentenced to death in 1979 on genocide charges in a Vietnamese-backed show trial with his former Deputy Premier, Ieng Sary. But the elusive Pol Pot continued to be at large, along with a band of 2,000 loyalists, even as the Khmer Rouge movement became increasingly fragmented, with more and more of its key members opting to strike a deal with the FUNCINPEC-CPP coalition that came to power after the UN-sponsored elections in 1993.

However, the most reviled leader of the KR continued to remain outside the scope of amnesty. Despite mounting pressure, Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk continued to maintain that he would not pardon the mastermind of the ``killingfields''.

Even so, a year ago, the King pardoned Ieng Sary at the request of Prince Norodom Ranariddh and second Prime Minister Hun Sen as part of a pact for his followers to join the government.

The move provoked angst-ridden reactions from many a thinking Cambodian. As one ``close observer of the Khmer regime'' wrote anonymously in the Phnom Penh Post, ``Who's next in line for rehabilitation? The Cambodian Hitler?...And if a deal is cut with Ta Mok (KR's current commander, commonly known as the `butcher'), ... why not pardon Pol Pot? He didn't kill everyone by himself, after all. He may never have even pulled a trigger. Maybe he's not such a bad guy after all''

Whether the anguished outburst of this Cambodian will ultimately be Pol Pot's epitaph, only time will tell.