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Thirty years on, Khmer Rouge torturer in dock
Mon Mar 30, 2009 3:04am EDT
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By Ek Madra
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Pol Pot's chief torturer took the stand on Monday, charged with crimes against humanity in the first trial of a top Khmer Rouge cadre 30 years after the end of a regime blamed for 1.7 million deaths in Cambodia.
Duch, the former chief of the S-21 prison where more than 14,000 "enemies" of the ultra-Maoist revolution were tortured and killed, stood before the five-judge panel and calmly answered questions about his background.
"I have been notified of the charges against me," the 66-year-old former maths teacher told the joint U.N.-Cambodian tribunal as hundreds of survivors of Khmer Rouge atrocities looked on from a public gallery.
Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, is expected to enter a plea later this week on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and homicide.
If found guilty, he could face a maximum of life in prison in Cambodia, which has no death penalty.
The born-again Christian has expressed remorse for the S-21 victims, most of them tortured and forced to confess to spying and other crimes before they were bludgeoned to death in the "Killing Fields" outside the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.
During questioning by court investigators before his trial, Duch said he was just following orders.
"No one could have sent people to S-21 without the decision of the standing committee of the Khmer Rouge," Duch was quoted as saying in a statement of facts read out during Monday's hearing.
Survivors reacted with pain and anger as they watched Duch, dressed in a white shirt and dark slacks, in the dock.
"Duch killed thousands of people, but he showed no regret. I just don't understand," said Om Chantha, a 69-year-old widow whose husband, a doctor, was killed by the Khmer Rouge.
MORE SUSPECTS?
The trial, held in a specially built court on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, marks a turning-point for the strife-torn country, where nearly every family lost someone during Pol Pot's "Year Zero" revolution to achieve an agrarian utopia.
Duch is expected to be a key witness in the future trials of "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, the regime's ex-president Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary, its foreign minister, and his wife.
The four others have denied knowledge of any atrocities by the Khmer Rouge during its rule, which began by driving everyone out of the cities with only what they could carry.
Advocates hope the tribunal -- formally known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) -- will serve as a model of professionalism for the country's erratic and politicized judiciary. Continued...
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