Please cough up the money for Comrade Duch, his detention was illegal ... should we thank him for the killings also?

Duch Deserves Release, Compensation for Illegal Detention, Lawyers Argue

Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
28 September 2007

Lawyers for the detained Khmer Rouge torture chief Duch argue he should be released and compensated for his detention, according to a legal brief released on the Khmer Rouge tribunal Web site Friday.

The lawyers, Cambodian Kar Savuth and Frenchman Francois Roux, officially filed for Duch's release from court detention in July. But the published appeal brief published offers a closer look at a tribunal process.

The lawyers for Duch, whose real name is Kaing Khek Iev, argue that their client has been held illegally since 1999, a human rights abuse.

Tribunal judges did not take his "lengthy" detention into consideration when they remanded him to tribunal court detention.

Duch—under whose watch up to 16,000 people were tortured, executed and dumped into mass graves on the outskirts of Phnom Penh—should be compensated "for the harm he has suffered as a result of the time he has spent in provisional detention," the lawyers argue in the brief.

Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath encouraged people to submit by the first week of October relevant "friends of the court" briefs on whether Duch should be released ahead of his trial.

"I have not seen any briefs to the court on whether they support or don't support Duch's release or not," he said.

Authoritarian [ASEAN] members, like Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, have refused to engage in stinging criticism of Myanmar

Philippines asks Myanmar to release Suu Kyi by ASEAN anniversary

Thursday, July 26, 2007
The Associated Press

MANILA, Philippines: The Philippines appealed Thursday for Myanmar to release pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi by November, when the Association of Southeast Asian Nations marks its founding anniversary.

"That's a very important milestone," Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo said.

Romulo said he would convey his appeal to his Myanmar counterpart, Nyan Win, who is to join an annual meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers Monday.

Myanmar's spotty human rights record has been raised at every major ASEAN meeting, but Romulo said there was no other option but to be patient.

"It's not easy to be waiting all the time, but we must keep our hopes and optimism," he told a news conference. "We should never get weary."

Myanmar ignored international calls not to extend the house arrest of Suu Kyi earlier this year, provoking new criticism, including from ASEAN.

ASEAN's 10 foreign ministers are to discuss Myanmar's efforts to democratize, according to a draft joint ministerial statement, which reserved a paragraph for the situation in the military-ruled nation.

Southeast Asian countries were hoping Myanmar would also complete a constitution it has been drafting for years by the time ASEAN leaders hold their annual summit in Singapore in November.

Myanmar's junta has said that drafting a constitution is the first of seven steps in a so-called roadmap to democracy that will culminate in free elections.

Critics say the process is a sham because it does not involve democracy activists such as Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, who has been in prison or under house arrest for more than 12 of the past 18 years.

Although bound by an ASEAN edict not to interfere in each other's affairs, some members, like Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, have become more blunt in their criticism, urging Myanmar to show tangible progress toward democratization.

Authoritarian members, like Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, have refused to engage in stinging criticism of Myanmar.

Myanmar's ruling generals took power in 1988. They called elections in 1990, but refused to recognize the results when Suu Kyi's party won a resounding victory.

Myanmar should have held ASEAN's rotating chairmanship and hosted the regional summit last year, but it gave up the chance amid protests by Western governments. The chairmanship, rotated alphabetically, was abruptly passed on to the Philippines.

Singapore takes over the chairmanship next week.