Saloth Sar (better known as Pol Pot; January 25, 1925 – April 15, 1998) was the leader of Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. He was the leader of a group called the Khmer Rouge, a group of peasant revolutionaries who turned Cambodia into a military dictatorship officially called Democratic Kampuchea. Between 1.7 and 2.2 million Cambodians were killed by his regime. Pol Pot was thrown out of power in January, 1979, when the Vietnamese Communists liberated Kampuchea.