Angelina Jolie Bought Land from Cambodian Mass Murderer: Report

By Ankita Mehta



Angelina Jolie has been doing a humanitarian work for Cambodia for a decade and the Southeast Asian country granted her citizenship in 2005.

There is no doubt that the actress is kind-hearted when it comes to helping the people in need. However, a recent report says that Jolie accidentally purchased land from an official who was charged of crimes against humanity.

The 36-year-old purchased two plots of land for $25,000 in Cambodia from the country's former member of the Khmer Rouge, accused of mass murders in the country.


Jolie, who runs a charity, is believed to have bought the land from Ta Tith (also known as Yim Tith), a former official leader of the Khmer Rouge which was responsible for the killing of a large number of people in the late 1970s. Ta Tith is wanted by the United Nations for crimes against humanity.

According to interviews and documents collected by Global Post, Jolie purchased a piece of land for her charitable activities in Cambodia in 2002 from the reclusive man. Jolie runs the charity named Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation in Samlot district. She bought land in the same area.

A local government official in Cambodia said that the land was in the control of the Khmer Rouge. Since, Tith was in need of cash, he sold the land to Jolie in 2002, the official confirmed.

The official also said, "The Prime Minister had given the land in this area to former Democratic Kampuchea (the Communist party run by the Khmer Rouge soldiers) and Tith sold the land to her because he badly needed money."

He said, 'She has title of ownership.'

Mounh Sarath, a former employee of Jolie, told the Global Post that the actress instructed him to buy the land, totaling about 225 acres, for more than $25,000 from Ta Tith in 2002.

According to Sarath, before purchasing the land, he had informed her of the fact that the seller had held a senior position in the government of the communist leader Pol Pot. "She knows that Yim Tith and everybody are the Khmer Rouge," he said over telephone. "We talked like we have to, like Mr. Yim Tith is a big man there and he's a very important person. ... So she knows that," he said.

In 2009, the United Nations charged Tith with crimes against humanity. Court documents said that Tith was the commander in charge of one of the areas in Cambodia where at least 600,000 people had been killed under the Khmer rule between 1977 and 1979.

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