PHNOM PENH (AFP) – Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal on Monday officially set February 17 as the start date for the long-awaited first trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders accused of atrocities in the 1970s.
Court documents released to media said the first hearing, for former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, will be for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Convention.
It said he will be tried for "his acts or omissions in Phnom Penh and within the territory of Cambodia, between 17 April 1975 and 6 January 1979."
He will be the first leader of Cambodia's brutal 1975-1979 communist regime to stand trial at the UN-backed tribunal.
Duch, 66, was indicted last year for allegedly overseeing the torture and extermination of more than 12,000 men, women and children when he headed Phnom Penh's Tuol Sleng prison, known as S-21.
A mathematics teacher who became the Khmer Rouge's torturer-in-chief, Duch has been in prison since 1999 for his role at Tuol Sleng. He was formally transferred to the tribunal in July 2007.
Thousands of inmates were taken from the centre he ran for execution at Choeng Ek, now known as the Killing Fields.
Up to two million people were executed or died of starvation and overwork as the regime emptied Cambodia's cities, exiling millions to vast collective farms in a bid to forge a communist utopia.
Duch is one of five Khmer Rouge leaders who have been detained by the court for their alleged roles in the regime.
Court documents released to media said the first hearing, for former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, will be for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Convention.
It said he will be tried for "his acts or omissions in Phnom Penh and within the territory of Cambodia, between 17 April 1975 and 6 January 1979."
He will be the first leader of Cambodia's brutal 1975-1979 communist regime to stand trial at the UN-backed tribunal.
Duch, 66, was indicted last year for allegedly overseeing the torture and extermination of more than 12,000 men, women and children when he headed Phnom Penh's Tuol Sleng prison, known as S-21.
A mathematics teacher who became the Khmer Rouge's torturer-in-chief, Duch has been in prison since 1999 for his role at Tuol Sleng. He was formally transferred to the tribunal in July 2007.
Thousands of inmates were taken from the centre he ran for execution at Choeng Ek, now known as the Killing Fields.
Up to two million people were executed or died of starvation and overwork as the regime emptied Cambodia's cities, exiling millions to vast collective farms in a bid to forge a communist utopia.
Duch is one of five Khmer Rouge leaders who have been detained by the court for their alleged roles in the regime.
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