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Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It was supposed to be a model for international justice and national reconciliation: a UN-backed tribunal to hold trials on one of the 20th century’s grimmest chapters, the Khmer Rouge’s murderous 1970s regime in Cambodia.

Eight years after its creation, though, the multinational panel is riven by suspicion, infighting and angry resignations over whether to try more Khmer Rouge defendants on war crimes charges in addition to the jailer already convicted and four top officials scheduled for trial on June 27.

Critics fear the panel is caving to pressure from Cambodia’s strongman prime minister — himself a former Khmer Rouge cadre — to quash any further indictments, or that the United Nations’ resolve to continue the trials may be waning.

The tussle raises questions about whether the panel can find full justice for the estimated 1.7 million people who were killed, starved, worked to death or died of disease in the “killing fields” of the Khmer Rouge’s savage rule.

“The integrity of the tribunal hangs in the balance,” warned former US war crimes ambassador David Scheffer, who helped establish the court.

London-based researcher Stephen Heder, one of five panel employees who quit in frustration, chastized investigative judges in his resignation letter for what he described as closing the case on the additional suspects “effectively without investigation.”

The United Nations weighed in on Tuesday, with the chief spokesman for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon strongly supporting the panel and its impartiality.

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government sought the UN’s help in the late 1990s to create the tribunal, but he did not want a fully international court, like for the former Yugoslavia.

Despite misgivings from negotiators, the final agreement in 2003 set up a hybrid system, with Cambodian and international judges and prosecutors working with Cambodian and international laws, under French-style rules.

“I did not want ... the UN emblem to be given to an entity that did not, shall we say, represent the highest international standards,” said Hans Corell, the chief UN negotiator at the time. “Of course, what we predicted seems to have developed into the problem that we were concerned would occur.”

Prosecutors have compiled substantial evidence for so-called Cases 003 and 004, which include two top military commanders who also were top officials in Cambodia’s post-Khmer Rouge military, according to confidential court documents. The documents allege both took part in purges that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.

The government, however, has openly stonewalled the proceedings. Hun Sen told Ban last year that new cases would “not be allowed.”

He has warned that new cases could spark renewed civil war, though his opposition likely stems from the many Khmer Rouge officials, like himself, who are now in government and fear investigators could dredge up new evidence of war crimes.

Scrutiny recently has focused on the two investigating judges who, under the French-style rules, are primarily responsible pretrial investigations. Separate seven-judge panels try the cases.

Many had hoped German investigating judge Siegfried Blunk would pursue the new cases despite the objections of his Cambodian counterpart.

Instead, the judges’ office has made a series of controversial rulings that many observers say are without legal basis and appear intended to pre-empt at least one of the cases.

British co-prosecutor Andrew Cayley has fought the rulings and released new details about the investigation, prompting a harsh rebuke from the judges, which Cayley slammed as “abusive,” ‘’unreasonable,” ‘’capricious” and unprecedented.”

Ban’s chief spokesman, Martin Nesirky, released a statement on Tuesday that denied speculation it was pushing judges to close Cases 003 and 004.

Clair Duffy, who monitors the tribunal for the Open Society Justice Initiative, said the damage the court has suffered could be mitigated by how the upcoming trial of a man, who was second only to the infamous Pol Pot, plays out.

The final judgment will rest with Cambodians, though, and whether they embrace the court’s decisions as model justice or political charade.

Associated Press