Former chief of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge prison apologises

Wednesday, September 16, 2009
ABC Radio Australia

The chief of the Khmer Rouge's main jail has ended his testimony to Cambodia's war crimes tribunal with a surprise invitation to victims of the former Pol Pot regime to visit him in prison.

Duch has told the United Nations-backed court that he would like to personally apologise to victims.

"Any victim who wishes to see me, I would be very happy to do so. You are all welcome," said Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav.

"I open the door to them emotionally and most importantly, I would like to express my inner emotions, or my guilt admission, so they could see my true self."

Duch has also admitted to overseeing the torture and execution of over 15,000 people at the so-called S-21 detention centre.

Admits guilt, denies torturing

He has told the court he admits his guilt and accepts responsibility.

However he denies several allegations he personally tortured and killed inmates.

Closing arguments in Duch's trial, the first at the court, are scheduled to take place in November and the verdict is expected early next year.

From Khmer Rouge torturer to born-again Christian

The leader of Cambodia's most notorious prison, now on trial, has admitted guilt and asked for forgiveness in accordance with his new faith.

April 06, 2009
By Stephen Kurczy
Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

Phnom Penh, Cambodia - Once a devoted Khmer Rouge communist, the regime's former chief executioner traded leftist ideology for Jesus, and now, with his trial four days under way, presents himself as a pious, contrite, and cooperative old man.

"I would like to seek forgiveness from the victims," Kaing Guek Eav, alias "Duch," told judges Monday at the UN-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).

At the second day of his trial March 31, he said: "I would like to emphasize that I am responsible for the crimes committed at S-21 [prison], especially the torture and execution of the people there."

This is the penitent Christian that Cheam Socheong, the director of Phkoam High School where Duch (pronounced "Doik") taught math in the 1990s, remembers well. "Duch often talked of God and the good way," Mr. Cheam said in a recent interview at his school office in Cambodia's remote northwest. "He asked me why I didn't go to church. He tried to convert me."

First with communism, then Christianity, Duch has always embraced and espoused his beliefs with fervor, friends and family say.

The court's psychological exam noted "obsessive" traits in his personality, "both past and present," though it did not link that trait specifically with his faith.

The intensity that once turned Duch into a feared prison chief has now transformed him into an evangelical Christian eager to cooperate with the court and seek forgiveness. Of five former Khmer Rouge cadres now in detention at the ECCC, he is the sole detainee to have cooperated with the investigating judges.

Duch's embrace of Christianity makes him "less likely than other defendants to justify the regime's abuses as necessary but painful steps toward socialism," says Stanford University's John Ciorciari, a senior legal adviser to the nonprofit Documentation Center of Cambodia.

A devoted communist teacher

Duch joined the Khmer Rouge in 1964 while attending college. The next year, he began teaching math at Skuon High School in Kompong Cham province, about 50 miles north of Phnom Penh. There, he often carried around Mao's Little Red Book and, although he could afford a car, rode to work on a rickety bicycle. He also encouraged students to embrace a peasant life, recalls Kek Channary, a former student.

"Everyone knew he was a communist," she said recently by telephone from San Jose, Calif., where she lives with her husband and two sons.

That same year, Duch said goodbye to his family and friends and joined the underground ultra-Maoist movement. During the next decade, he oversaw several of the regime's security offices, most notably S-21 in Phnom Penh, now known as Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, where it is estimated that more than 12,000 people confessed under torture to counterrevolutionary activity and were executed.

From communist to Christian

When the Vietnamese Army sacked Phnom Penh in 1979, Duch fled with the Khmer Rouge to Cambodia's western border. He remained a cadre until 1992, when he moved his wife and four children to the village of Phkoam in Banteay Meanchey Province and resumed teaching math. He used the alias "Hang Pin" to hide his identity.

Soon after Duch moved to Phkoam, his neighbor, Suon Sito, invited him to attend the local Christian church. Duch embraced the religion and cast aside his communist beliefs, Mr. Suon said in a recent interview.

Duch became vocal about his faith and began inviting others to attend services, says Suon, and eventually became a lay pastor.

Duch's eldest child, Ky Sievkim, said her father baptized her soon after his conversion. "Every night my father led me in prayer. Every Sunday he brought out the Bible and read it to the whole family," she said during a recent interview at her home in Battambang Province. As she spoke, she held in her lap her 1-year-old son Chhin Chonghour, whom Duch has never met.

Duch later started a house church near Svay Chek High School, where he taught from 1996 to 1997. During the work day, he proselytized. "He spoke of Jesus Christ and tried to convince other teachers to believe," said Hun Smien, the school's former director, in an interview at the now-abandoned schoolhouse where Duch lectured French — one of five languages he speaks.

Khmer Rouge identity revealed

In 1998, when local teachers recognized "Hang Pin" from a photo in the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Duch urgently requested a transfer to Battambang province, where he became the education director of Samlot town, Mr. Hun says.

There, his evangelism continued. "He asked me to be a Christian," says Sok Lian, a local market vender in Samlot who briefly rented property from Duch. "He told me he wanted to start a church. But he was arrested before he could."

In 1999, a news article revealed Duch's identity and authorities soon detained him. The news stunned his former students and colleagues. "When I saw him on television, I said, 'Oh, Hang Pin is Duch!" recalls the former high school director, Hun.

"I was shocked," says Ms. Kek, Duch's student in the 1960s. Although she remembers Duch as kinder than the other teachers, she is appalled by his deeds. "You cannot erase his genocidal action," Kek says. "You cannot forgive him for that."

Family members see Duch differently, arguing that he is a changed man worthy of forgiveness. "I want to tell the court that my father is a good man, through Jesus," said Mrs. Ky. Duch's sister, Hang Kim Hong, who today lives in Duch's old home in Samlot, said that she prays for his release every day with her children.

Seeking forgiveness

Duch has said he will cooperate with the court during the next three to four months of trial proceedings and attempt to answer all questions asked by the judges.

Alex Hinton of Rutgers University's Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights says Duch's trial starts a long-overdue conversation between Khmer Rouge perpetrators and victims. It's also Duch's first chance to seek the forgiveness his new ideology commands.

"His admission is very much a Christian act," Mr. Hinton said during a break in Monday's proceedings. "The question now is whether he's trying to get his sentence down or is genuinely sorry and wants to confess his sins."

Duch's apology too little, too late

April 04, 2009
Gulf News

A former leader of the notorious Khmer Rouge government is on trial in Phnom Penh, accused of crimes against humanity by a UN-backed court.

On Tuesday, Kang Kek Iew, better known as 'Duch', apologised to the court and accepted responsibility for supervising the extermination of around 15,000 people between 1975 and 1979 at the infamous Tuol Sleng prison then under communist control.

The apology was followed a day later by a request from his lawyer that the prison chief be released from custody as his human rights were being violated.

The lawyer argued that because Duch has been in custody without trial for 10 years, his detention was illegal.

How ironic. The laws of natural justice creak under the strain placed upon them by the extermination of so many helpless victims that passed between the gates under Duch's control.

His apology is too little, too late, and an insult to all those butchered by his party's misguided beliefs. He should not see the light of day again.

‘I Am Sorry’, Duch Tells S-21 Victims

By VOA Khmer, Washington
Video Editor: Manilene Ek
02 April 2009

The former commandant of Khmer Rouge's main torture facility on Tuesday told a UN-backed tribunal that he took responsibility for the crimes committed there, and agreed to accept all the 260 crimes charged against him.

Kaing Kek Iev, known as Duch, took the stand on Tuesday and said he wanted to "apologise to the survivors of the regime and also to the families of the victims who have loved ones died so brutally at S-21."

"I would like those people to please know I would like to apologise," Duch said.

66-year old Duch commanded the group's main S-21 prison, also known as Tuol Sleng, where as many as 16-thousand men women and children are believed to have been brutalized before being sent to their deaths. Duch said he took responsibility "for crimes committed at S-21."

He was called the stand to defend himself against accusations made by the prosecution, which delivered its opening arguments on Tuesday.

The tribunal is seeking to establish responsibility for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million from starvation, medical neglect, slave-like conditions and execution under the Khmer Rouge, whose top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.

He is charged with committing crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as torture and homicide, and could face a maximum penalty of life in prison. Cambodia has no death penalty.

As well as photographs and death lists from the prison, the court was shown a film shot when the facility was found by invading Vietnamese troops in January 1979, which showed the corpses of the last victims to be killed there.

Duch, unlike the four other former Khmer Rouge leaders awaiting trial, has admitted his guilt and has asked for forgiveness.

Duch's lawyer Francois Roux objected on legal grounds to showing some footage of Tuol Sleng after it was abandoned by the Khmer Rouge, but the judges rejected his argument.

The film clearly affected one of only three living survivors of S-21. Bou Meng's talent as a painter saved him from execution, which his jailers put to use producing portraits of leader Pol Pot. But his wife who was arrested with him was killed there. In a break in proceedings Bou Meng said seeing the film reminded him of his wife, and that it "horrified" him.

He said that Duch's apology was "unacceptable."

Another S-21 survivor, Chum Mey, said when he heard Duch speak he felt "relaxed," but that he was "very frustrated with his lawyer."

Duch has been in detention since he was discovered in 1999 by British journalist Nic Dunlop in the Cambodian countryside, where he had been living under an assumed name.

Dunlop, who attended Tuesday's hearing, said it was "interesting" to see Duch's reaction to evidence being played out in the trial. "As far as I can see there's been absolutely no reaction from him and that's probably been the most interesting aspect for me," Dunlop said.

Information for this report was provided by APTN.

Khmer Rouge torture descriptions stun Greenwich observers

03/31/2009
By Albert J. Repicci and Kelly Repicci
Special Correspondents
Greenwich Time (Connecticut, USA)

Editor's note: Greenwich orthodontist Albert Repicci and his daughter Kelly are attending the genocide trial of former Khmer Rouge official Kaing Guek Eav as observers.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- On the second day of the trial of the former Khmer Rouge prison chief, the courtroom was mesmerized by the gripping description of his alleged crimes against humanity.

Canadian prosecutor Robert Petit elaborated on the extent of the horrors for which Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, is being held responsible, specifically the death by starvation, overwork, torture and execution of more than 16,000 men, women and children.

Petit showed film clips taken at the prison on the day of its liberation showing the bodies of inmates shackled in torture chambers. Several Cambodians witnessing these graphic scenes broke into tears, while others left the courtroom.

Petit regarded any claim that Duch, commander of the prison, was just following orders as implausible and unbelievable given the nature of the annotations Duch had inscribed on documents describing torture and execution techniques.

It was ironic to learn from Petit's description that the Khmer Rouge regime had become so paranoid that it eventually had 190 staff members in the prison executed and tortured as part of a cleansing of enemies of the regime.

The tribunal then called for a recess, at which time Duch, who sat alone in the dock with his back to the courtroom, turned and looked out at the assemblage of Cambodians holding him responsible for the atrocities that had just been described.

After recess, to the shock of all in attendance, Duch asked to take the stand and confess his guilt for the atrocities he was accused of and to offer his apologies to the people of Cambodia. He detailed his greater concern for his own life and that of his family over those of the many Cambodians whom he had sent to their deaths.

He said he had realized that he too was likely to become a victim of his superiors' paranoia and eventually suffer the same fate as his victims.

Petit put the confession in a different perspective. He pointed out that, although the prison had been overrun and evacuated in 1979, Duch remained a loyal member of Khmer Rouge for another 15 years.

Further, Petit said, Duch had ultimate power in the prison and the atrocities were shaped by his own design. Finally, Petit seized on one of the most unique aspects of the trial -- the opportunity for witnesses and victims to question the accused themselves before the court.

Unless that privilege was fulfilled, he said, there would be no closure and no reconciliation for the nation or for the families of those whom Duch had sent to their deaths.

Robert Petit casts doubt on Duch’s remorse

31 March 2009
By A.L.G.
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Tola Ek
Click here to read the article in French

The prosecutor reminded that the former S-21 official remained with the communist party of Kampuchea for another “13 years,” following the fall of the KR regime in January 1979.

Following the initial declaration given by the prosecutor in the morning of Tuesday 31 March, Robert Petit, the Canadian co-prosecutor, questioned the sincerity of Duch’s remorse, while acknowledging that he collaborated with the court.

“Was his feeling of remorse authentic?” Robert Petit asked in French. “It is indeed a good question to ask. Indeed, Duch asked for forgiveness on several occasions, directly during scene re-enactments or through his lawyers. But, did he apologized to the victims whom he ordered and supervised their torture?”

Reminding the audience that Duch remained a member of the communist party of Kampuchea for another “13 years” following the fall of the regime, and that the KR had enough confidence in him to send him to teach Khmer in China for two more years, Robert Petit ended his speech by paying tribute to the victims: “Behind the statistics and the slogans, there are hidden names, families, hope. Maybe, the accused will finally be troubled by these sufferings, which in the past, left him unmoved.”

Prior to this, Robert Petit once again asked that “as in all mass crime cases,” the charge of “joint criminal enterprise” be retained against Duch.

At the end of the initial declaration by the prosecution, the session ended at about noon time. It was restarted at 1:30 PM to allow the defense to provide its reply.

In Trial Remarks, Duch Apologizes to Victims

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
31 March 2009

As Cambodia's first Khmer Rouge trial resumed Tuesday, its defendant, Duch, apologized for killing more than 15,000 people as head of Tuol Sleng prison, and he apologized to anyone who had made it through his killing machine.

"I would like to express my sorrow and great suffering for all kinds of crimes that were committed April 17, 1975, to Jan. 6, 1979," he said, referring to the period when the Khmer Rouge ran the country and when nearly 2 million people died.

As chief of Tuol Sleng, a prison known as S-21 to the Khmer Rouge, Duch oversaw the torture and execution of up 16,000 people. He also oversaw a mass grave site where the bodies of the executed were buried, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

"For the crimes in S-21, I would like to recognize my responsibility under the law," Duch said in a clear, strong voice Tuesday. "More importantly, for the acts of torture and killing, I would like to apologize to the witnesses who are still alive, and I would like to apologize to the families of the victims who died at S-21."

Only a handful of people survived the prison. One of them was Bu Meng, who had been a civil servant for the Lon Nol regime and spent nearly three years there.

Now 68, Bu Meng has closely followed Duch's trial. He told VOA Khmer that Tuesday's apology was not enough to assuage the mental anguish caused by his time in the prison.

"I need justice from the courts to try Duch," he said.

Y Lay Theng, 62, an audience member watching Tuesday's proceedings, said Duch had made "serious mistakes" as a member of the Khmer Rouge. "So the court of law will not allow him to be freed from the charges." The apology was unlikely to have an effect on the outcome of the trial, he said.

Duch's Cambodian attorney, Kar Savuth, told the court Tuesday that 14 top Khmer Rouge leaders were responsible for serious crimes and violence under the regime, but Duch was not one of them.

"Among the 14, there is no name 'Kaing Kek Iev,'" he said. "So: the person other than these 14 gets to be tried. This violates the one article of the law on the establishment of the [tribunal]."

The tribunal is tasked with trying the senior-most leaders of the regime, and is currently holding only four of its top leaders: ideologue Nuon Chea, head of state Khieu Samphan, foreign minister Ieng Sary and social affairs minister Ieng Thirith.

Duch was the head of what has become a well-known prison, now converted into a torture museum, but researchers point out there were 197 other such prisons under the Khmer Rouge.

Duch said Tuesday he was willing to cooperate closely with the tribunal and would answer "all questions" from judges, prosecutors and civil parties.

"I wish the court would have a budget shortfall as soon as possible": Hun Sen

Khmer Rouge defendant expresses 'heartfelt sorrow'

Tuesday, March 31, 2009
By GRANT PECK

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The man who ran the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison in Cambodia accepted responsibility Tuesday for torturing and executing thousands of inmates and expressed "heartfelt sorrow" for his crimes.

Kaing Guek Eav (pronounced "Gang Geck Ee-uu"), better known as Duch ("Doik"), told the U.N.-backed genocide tribunal he wanted to apologize for his actions under the Khmer Rouge, whose radical policies while in power from 1975 to 1979 left an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians dead.

Duch, 66, who commanded the group's main S-21 prison, accepted responsibility for the crimes committed there, "especially the torture and execution of people." As many as 16,000 men, women and children are believed to have been brutalized and killed at S-21, also known as Tuol Sleng.

"I would like to express my deep regret and my heartfelt sorrow," Duch said.

He is charged with committing crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as torture and homicide, and could face a maximum penalty of life in prison. Cambodia has no death penalty.

While Duch's statements amount to a confession of guilt, tribunal defendants do not enter pleas. The tribunal says its primary goal is to determine the facts of the Khmer Rouge rule three decades ago and establish responsibility for the starvation, medical neglect, slave-like working conditions and executions under the regime, whose top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.

Duch is the least senior of only five surviving leaders of the regime scheduled to go before the court.

Critics allege that Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has sought to limit the tribunal's scope because other potential defendants are now loyal to him, and that to arrest them could be politically awkward.

Hun Sen expressed disdain for the court Tuesday during a speech in Cambodia's southwest, saying that adding defendants could spark war and decrying Japan's offer to donate $200,000 to the tribunal to help pay its salaries.

Hun Sen, himself a former Khmer Rouge official, said he would rather see the court run out of money. "Don't talk to me about the budget shortfall," he said. "I wish the court would have a budget shortfall as soon as possible."

After the prosecution's opening arguments, which described Duch as a key cog in the Khmer Rouge killing machine, Duch asked permission to make a personal statement.

He began by reading from a prepared statement and then put his papers down, removed his eyeglasses and gazed directly at the 500-seat audience in the courtroom, filled with Khmer Rouge survivors and other members of the public.

Duch said he tried to avoid being made commander of S-21, but once in the job he feared for his life and his family's safety if he did not carry out his duty to extract confessions from supposed enemies of the regime.

Duch apologized to his victim's families but said he was not asking to be pardoned for such "serious crimes that cannot be tolerated."

"My current plea is that I would like you to please leave an open window for me to seek forgiveness," he said, vowing to cooperate fully with the tribunal as "this is only the remedy that can help me to relieve all the sorrow and crimes I have committed."

Duch's Cambodian lawyer, Kar Savuth, described his client as a scapegoat and a victim of selective justice while many others remain uncharged.

The long-awaited trial against Duch began Monday with a full reading of the 45-page indictment. Prisoners were beaten, electrocuted, smothered with plastic bags or had water poured into their noses; children were taken from their parents and dropped from third floor windows to their deaths, and some prisoners were bled to death, the indictment said.

On Tuesday morning, Cambodian co-prosecutor Chea Leang vowed to get justice for the regime's victims.

"For 30 years, one-and-a-half million victims of the Khmer Rouge have been demanding justice for their suffering," Chea Leang said.

Most of Cambodia's 14 million people were born after the 1979 fall of the Khmer Rouge, and many struggle daily to make a living in the poverty-stricken country.

Motorcycle taxi driver Vong Song, 52, said that he hears people talking about the tribunal, but he's too busy working to pay for his three children's education to worry about it.

"Let the court and the government do it. For me, the important thing is earning money to support my family," he said.

Associated Press writer Sopheng Cheang in Phnom Penh contributed to this report.

Apology Offered at Khmer Rouge Trial

Kaing Guek Eav, the commandant of a torture house, read a statement during his trial in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Tuesday. (Associated Press)

March 31, 2009
By SETH MYDANS
The New York Times

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The commandant of the most prominent Khmer Rouge torture house apologized in court Tuesday for atrocities he had committed but said that he had feared for his own life and that he was being made a scapegoat for others.

“I would like to express my regret and heartfelt sorrow,” said the commandant, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who is the first defendant in a trial involving the deaths of 1.7 million people from 1975 to 1979 from starvation, overwork and disease, as well as torture and execution.

“My current plea is that I would like you to please leave an open window for me to seek forgiveness,” said Duch, who is 66. One of five defendants in the United Nations-backed trial, he faces a possible life sentence on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes as well as homicide and torture.

He concluded his 18-minute address by presenting the court with a strange pencil sketch of men at desks and piles of skulls that he said explained the workings of the Khmer Rouge hierarchy.

In an intense second day of testimony in a trial that has been delayed by war and politics for 30 years, one of the prosecutors, Robert Petit, portrayed Duch as a committed and ruthless chief of Tuol Sleng prison and questioned the sincerity of his expressions of remorse.

“The accused was knowingly and intentionally in control of the entire Tuol Sleng criminal enterprise,” he said, noting that his contrition had only come many years later.

“Rather than a victim of fear, he was the one who created fear,” he said.

He illustrated what he said was Duch’s brutality by describing the fate of his “teacher and mentor,” Chay Kim Huor, who recruited him into the communist party in 1964. “Fifteen years later the accused would supervise the torture and execution of Chay,” Petit said. “That single fact I submit as highly revealing.”

At a news conference after the court session, a lawyer representing civil parties in the case, said Duch’s apology addressed a deep need among victims, whose traumas have not been publicly acknowledged for three decades.

“The most important thing is that he spoke today and expressed regret, remorse, and sought forgiveness, which was something the civil parties have been waiting for for a long time,” said the lawyer, Martine Jacquin.

Duch’s biographer, Nic Dunlop — the journalist who discovered him living incognito 10 years ago — - said that even if it was tactical, Duch’s apology was significant. He said his cooperation and truth-telling would offer some of the historical clarification that many Cambodians are seeking.

Duch’s lawyers presented a vigorous defense of a man who has admitted to overseeing the torture and execution of at least 14,000 people, portraying him as a man trapped inside a giant killing machine who now finds himself singled out for prosecution.

Asserting that Tuol Sleng was just one of 196 similar institutions — and far from the worst of them — one of his lawyers, Kat Savuth, asked: “Is it fair? Is this called justice?”

“Each prison had the same orders from Angkar,” he said, referring to the Khmer Rouge leadership, “all conducted torture and execution. Why is only Duch brought to trial? He is only a scapegoat.”

He added: “It would be better not to try anyone than to try some and leave others at large.”

Duch’s second lawyer, Francois Roux, said Duch was part of a hierarchy of terror in which all the actors were in effect victims as well as perpetrators.

“It was because of the terror that every link in the chain of command acted zealously to please superiors,” he said.

Duch had admitted his part in sowing fear among his subordinates, he said. “Does this mean therefore that we should cloak in silence the fact that he himself received orders? What we agree happened below happened equally above him.”

Taking his argument of moral equivalence a step further, he said that just as Duch had dehumanized his victims, his accusers and victims were guilty of dehumanizing him.

“Duch remains a human being,” he said, addressing the prosecutors. “Maybe there are certain points at which he has a bit of trouble admitting certain things. But maybe you as well have trouble admitting certain things.”

In his address to the court, Duch said he did not even dare think about challenging orders he received from his superiors.

“So it was a life or death situation for me myself, and my family as a whole,” he said. “As the person in charge of Tuol Sleng I never attempted to find an alternative other than obeying an order, even though I knew that obeying the order meant that numerous people would perish.”

He said he felt remorse and shame “in the eyes of those who were victims and those who lost loved ones in the regime, including my own loved ones, who lost family members as well.”

Cambodia: Khmer Rouge Defendant Expresses 'Heartfelt Sorrow'

2009-03-31
By GRANT PECK
AP

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA: The man who ran the Khmer Rouge's most notorious prison accepted responsibility Tuesday (31 March) for torturing and executing thousands of inmates and expressed "heartfelt sorrow" for his crimes.

Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, told the U.N.-backed genocide tribunal that he wanted to apologize for the acts of the Khmer Rouge, whose genocidal rule of Cambodia from 1975-1979 left an estimated 1.7 million people dead.

"I recognize that I am responsible for the crimes committed," Duch told the tribunal, standing in the dock as he read from a prepared statement. "I would like to express my regretfulness and heartfelt sorrow."

Duch, now 66, commanded the group's main S-21 prison, also known as Tuol Sleng, where as many as 16,000 men women and children are believed to have been brutalized before being sent to their deaths. He is charged with committing crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as torture and homicide, and could face a maximum penalty of life in prison. Cambodia has no death penalty.

He told the court he took responsibility "for crimes committed at S-21, especially torture and execution of people there."

While Duch's statements amount to a confession of guilt, defendants at the tribunal do not enter pleas. The tribunal says its primary goal is to determine the facts of what happened three decades ago during Khmer Rouge rule.

Co-prosecutor Chea Leang vowed to get justice for the 1.7 million victims of the country's radical communist regime.

"For 30 years, one-and-a-half million victims of the Khmer Rouge have been demanding justice for their suffering. For 30 years, the survivors of Democratic Kampuchea have been waiting for accountability. For 30 years, a generation of Cambodians have been struggling to get answers for their fate," Chea Leang said, using the regime's name for Cambodia.

"Justice will be done," she said. "History demands it."

The long-awaited trial against Duch began Monday (30 March) with a full reading of the 45-page indictment. Executioners threw victims to their deaths, bludgeoned them and then slit their bellies, or had medics draw so much blood that their lives drained away, according to the indictment.

The tribunal is seeking to establish responsibility for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million from starvation, medical neglect, slave-like conditions and execution under the Khmer Rouge, whose top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.

Duch's job was to extract confessions of counterrevolutionary activity, but "every prisoner who arrived at S-21 was destined for execution," the indictment said. Prisoners were beaten, electrocuted, smothered with plastic bags or had water poured into their noses. Children were taken from their parents and dropped from the third floor of a prison building.

Chea Leang recalled the regime's infamous maxim regarding its enemies: "To keep you is no gain, to destroy you is no loss."

The prosecutor displayed historic photographs and video records from the Khmer Rouge years, which began with executions of loyalists of the previous regime and the brutal forced evacuation to the countryside of the capital's 2 million residents.

Duch has been in detention since he was discovered in 1999 by British journalist Nic Dunlop in the Cambodian countryside, where he had been living under an assumed name.

Dunlop, who attended Tuesday's (31 March) hearing, said it was "surreal" to see Duch in a courtroom as victims of the Khmer Rouge watched, but it was difficult to gauge local interest in the trial.

"Whether it resonates beyond these walls is the big question, and if it doesn't, we might as well be on another planet," he said

Most of Cambodia's 14 million people were born after the 1979 fall of the Khmer Rouge, and many struggle daily to make a living in the poverty-stricken country.

Motorcycle taxi driver Vong Song, 52, said that he hears people talking about the tribunal, but he's too busy working to pay for his three children's education to worry about it.

"Let the court and the government do it. For me, the important thing is earning money to support my family. That's what I think," he said.

Khmer Rouge chief asks forgiveness [-If your loved ones were killed in S-21, would you be willing to accept Duch's apologies?]

31 March 2009
Source: AFP

The Khmer Rouge prison chief known as Duch has admitted responsibility for his crimes at his UN-backed trial and asked the families of the regime's victims for forgiveness.

"May I be permitted to apologise to the survivors of the regime and also the loved ones of those who died brutally during the regime. I ask not that you forgive me now, but hope you will later," Duch told the court.

"As a member of the (Khmer Rouge) I recognise responsibility for what happened at Tuol Sleng," he said, speaking in the Khmer language.

Duch's defence team asked that he be allowed to address the court after prosecutors spent the morning outlining their case against him for war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and premeditated murder.

But while the former prison chief expressed his regrets for running the detention centre which killed up to 15,000 people, he also insisted that he did not hold a senior role in the 1975 to 1979 regime.

"I was in a life and death situation for myself and my family," he said.

He went on to show an illustration he drew of the senior Khmer Rouge leadership structure, with Pol Pot as its leader and Nuon Chea, another current detainee at the court, as the deputy. Pol Pot died in 1998.

After Duch finished speaking, his defence lawyer Kar Savuth said by prosecuting Duch, the trial was not living up to its commitment to take on those most responsible for the crimes of the regime.

"How can justice be done and how can the victims who survived accept this?" Kar Savuth said.

"Duch is being prosecuted as a scapegoat on behalf of the other 195 chiefs of prisons. Please consider that fact."