For the second day straight, witness “2-TCW-827” yesterday failed to appear before the Khmer Rouge tribunal, prompting the judges to demand a report from the court’s judicial police section.

A request from trial chamber president Nil Nonn to Major General Lor Soleng, deputy chief of the safety and security section, for a report on all contact between the witness and the court since March 28 was made public shortly thereafter, with yesterday afternoon as the deadline.

The request revealed the chamber had attempted to secure testimony from the witness on the treatment of the Cham since September 2015.

But “the Witness has repeatedly refused to accept the summons”, and refused to undergo medical examination despite claiming poor health.

“On 25 March 2016, having exhausted all means to persuade the Witness to appear”, the court contacted Soleng to “discuss the implementation of an order to bring the witness by force to the ECCC”.

On March 28, before the order was issued, the witness decided to accept the summons and was scheduled to appear on Monday, but on Sunday he “had changed his mind”.

Prior trial chamber hearings referring to 2-TCW-827 suggest he may be an Islamic religious leader who claims he bore witness to a meeting in the East Zone’s Chamkar Leu district in which a plan to eliminate the Cham ethnic minority by 1980 was discussed.