The UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal is urging victims to come forward and enter complaints against four jailed leaders of the regime before a mid-November, as the court prepares for its second case.

Case No. 002, which will collectively try Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, is expected to get underway in the near future, as case No. 001, the trial of prison chief Kaing Kek Iev, or Duch, is drawing to a close.

Investigating judges have begun to recognize more civil parties for Case No. 002.

“Any person who wishes to become a Civil Party in Case 002 should submit to the Victims Unit their Civil Party application as soon as possible, preferably before mid-November, 2009,” the tribunal said in a statement.

“This maximizes the attention that can be provided to, and the use that can be made of, the submissions by the Victims Unit and the Office of the Co-Investigating Judges,” the statement said. “It also provides more time for additional detail to be sought from and provided by the applicant should that be necessary.”

Hong Kimsoun, lawyer representing civil parties, said he had received 16 applications for the second case.

“The majority of my clients in Case No. 001 submitted their civil party applications in Case. No. 002,” he said.

Lath Ky, a tribunal monitor for the rights group Adhoc, said the tribunal’s second case would be critical for finding justice, as well as psychiatric resolution and compensation.

Chum Mey, who survived Duch’s Tuol Sleng prison, known in the Khmer Rouge as S-21, said he filed as a civil party in that case and the second.

“They not only killed at S-21 but also around Cambodia,” he said.

The Victims Unit has so far submitted 993 civil party applications to the investigating judges in Case No. 002.