PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — A U.N.-assisted genocide tribunal will deliver a verdict this coming Thursday in the trial of the two top leaders of the communist Khmer Rouge, whose extremist policies in the late 1970s are blamed for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians though starvation, medical neglect, overwork and execution.

Khieu Samphan, 83, the regime’s head of state, and Nuon Chea, 88, right-hand man of the group’s late leader, Pol Pot, were tried for crimes against humanity. They will face a second trial this year on additional charges of genocide. The tribunal’s first trial sent to prison the commander of the group’s notorious Tuol Sleng torture center, but the upcoming verdict will mark the first time the Khmer Rouge policymakers will be judged.