PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – Prosecutors for the international tribunal examining the 1970s Cambodian genocide submitted a list Wednesday of Khmer Rouge leaders they recommend stand trial.

A statement from the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia said there were five suspects, but did not name them. Judges will evaluate the evidence and decide on indictments.

Some 1.7 million people died from hunger, disease, overwork and execution during the communist Khmer Rouge’s 1975-79 rule. Prosecutors submitted evidence including thousands of pages of documentation and the locations of more than 40 mass graves.

The prosecutors’ announcement was a turning point that the Khmer Rouge’s victims have long waited for, said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group collecting evidence of the regime’s atrocities.

“Things are moving along right now. There remains hope that justice will prevail,” Chhang said.

The prosecutors _ a joint Cambodian-international team _ submitted 25 cases to the judges involving “murder, torture, forcible transfer, unlawful detention, forced labor and religious, political and ethnic persecution.”

All five suspects were senior leaders, it said.

The late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998 and his military chief Ta Mok died in 2006.

Other senior leaders live freely in Cambodia but are in declining health: Nuon Chea, the movement’s chief ideologue; Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister; and Khieu Samphan, the former head of state.

Kaing Khek Iev, who headed the former Khmer Rouge S-21 torture center, is the only top figure in government custody, but not under the law guiding the tribunal.

The move by the prosecutors came about a year after Cambodian and foreign judicial officials took their tribunal posts.

Cambodia first sought U.N. help in 1997 to create a tribunal, but it took years of tough negotiations _ with Cambodia saying it was concerned about its sovereignty _ before the two parties signed a pact in 2003 agreeing to hold trials.

The trials were originally expected to start this year but bickering between Cambodian and foreign judges over procedural rules delayed the process.

The tribunal said that a detention facility at its headquarters, about 10 miles west of the capital of Phnom Penh, was ready to hold any defendants.

A service of the Associated Press(AP)