Khmer Rouge executioner Comrade Duch asks to apologise to families Kaing Guek Eav

Khmer Rouge executioner Comrade Duch asks to apologise to families
Kaing Guek Eav, known as Comrade Duch, expresses wish in court to meet
families of those tortured and murdered

Ben Doherty in Phnom Penh
Wednesday 25 November 2009 12.18 GMT

The Khmer Rouge's executioner-in-chief, the prison boss allegedly
responsible for the torture and murder of more than 12,000 people, appeared
in court today to express his "excruciating remorse", asking that he be
allowed to meet his victims' families to apologise in person.

Kaing Guek Eav, known as Comrade Duch, told a courtroom packed with around
600 people – many of them survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime – that he took
full responsibility for the torture and murders that occurred at the Tuol
Sleng prison in the 1970s.

"I am solely and individually responsible for the loss of at least 12,380
lives," he said. "These people, before their deaths, endured great and
prolonged suffering and countless indignities. I … forever wish most
respectful and humble apologies to the dead souls.

"As for the families, I [am] asking you to kindly leave your door open for
me to make my apologies. May I meet with you to allow me to share your
intense and enduring sorrow any time in order to express my most
excruciating remorse?"

The apology, broadcast live on national TV, left many Cambodians cold. Bou
Meng, one of only a dozen people to have walked out of Tuol Sleng alive,
said he doubted Duch's sincerity.

"We've wept together," he said, "I know my tears are coming from sorrow. But
I don't know about Duch's tears."

As a child, Norng Charnpal was rescued, filthy, starving and frightened,
from Tuol Sleng when it was liberated. His mother died there. He told the
Guardian he did not want Duch to apologise.

"I don't want to hear this. It is not real and it is not enough for my
family. Look at him, he is an old man, he has had a long life. The way he
talked, I do not believe he is genuine."

Dressed in a carefully ironed blue shirt, Duch, a former mathematics
teacher, spoke calmly and coldly, his evidence littered with casual
references to "the wishes of the party".

As head of Tuol Sleng prison, a converted high school also known as S-21,
Duch explained that his role was to "smash" people presumed disloyal to the
Khmer Rouge movement. Every prisoner was assumed guilty, Duch explained,
effectively "already dead".

They were to be tortured for false confessions, usually that they were
traitors working for the CIA or KGB, through electric shocks, beatings and
whippings, water-boarding, having fingers cut off or toenails pulled out.
The victims were then executed, most driven to nearby Choeung Ek, the
Killing Fields, where they were bludgeoned to death with ox-cart axles and
buried in mass graves.

"Those people were the innocent, the clean, the very honest," Duch admitted.
"I don't believe they had committed any wrongdoing, as they were accused."

Speaking from a handwritten speech that ran to more than 10 pages, Duch said
he found himself unwittingly caught up in a revolution he came to despise,
and was forced to do his job at Tuol Sleng against his wishes, out of fear
he would be killed if he refused.

"I could not withdraw from it … I am very terrified."

Earlier in the day, prosecutors asked that Duch be jailed for 40 years for
his crimes, effectively a life sentence for the 67-year-old. He will be
sentenced next year.

The lead prosecutor, William Smith, refuted Duch's claim that he was acting
only out of fear for his own life, telling the court "the accused was
neither a prisoner, nor a hostage, nor a victim. He was an idealist, a
revolutionary, a crusader … prepared to torture and kill willingly for the
good of the revolution."

Throughout the trial, Duch has listened attentively but impassively as the
evidence of the murderous regime he oversaw is laid bare before the court.
As the court heard this week of his orders that inmates who soiled
themselves be forced to eat their excrement, Duch appeared inscrutable,
taking meticulous notes of all that was said.

The ultra-communist Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia for four years between 1975
and 1979. The regime killed – through starvation, overwork, disease and
murder – an estimated 1.7 million people, one-quarter of the country's
population.

Comrade Duch is the first Khmer Rouge cadre to face trial. Four more senior
leaders – including the regime's former second-in-command, Nuon Chea – are
in jail awaiting trial, but there are concerns they may not live long enough
to face a courtroom in 2011. A report this week by the Open Society Justice
Initiative has said allegations of corruption amongst court officials, and
the Cambodian government's open resistance to more trials, could derail the
trial process.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

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Wednesday, November 25, 2009 3:32 PM
Prosecutors seek 40 years imprisonment for Khmer Rouge chief jailer
By Puy Kea

PHNOM PENH, Nov. 25 KYODO - Prosecutors of a U.N.-backed court
requested Wednesday to the Trial Chamber that the Khmer Rouge's former chief
jailer be sentenced to 40 years in jail for crimes against humanity and war
crimes.
The request was made in the final stage of proceedings against Kaing
Guek Eav, better known as Duch, the 67-year-old former chief of Tuol Sleng
prison, the infamous torture center also known as S-21.
William Smith, international co-prosecutor, said that based on the
serious crimes that Duch committed in the past, he could have faced the
maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
But he said 40 years of imprisonment was sought instead, since Duch has
already been detained for a decade prior to his trial, cooperated well with
the court, made a full admission of responsibility and expressed remorse,
thus contributing to national reconciliation.
Duch, arrested in 1999, is the first of five Khmer Rouge leaders to be
tried by the court. He admits he was responsible for the deaths of at least
12,380 prisoners while S-21 was under his command, though he says he was
only following orders and denies having personally killed anybody.
Smith described him as ''an idealist, a Communist Party of Kampuchea
revolutionary and a crusader prepared to sacrifice everything for the
cause.''
''Duch was a willing partner, not because he was ordered to commit the
crimes, but because he believed in their legitimacy. He was extremely
efficient in carrying out the crimes at S-21. He was no prisoner of the
regime. Duch was nothing less than a willing participant in the crimes,'' he
said.
On Tuesday, Chea Leang, the Cambodian co-prosecutor, called Duch the
''personification of ruthless efficiency'' and the ''perfect candidate'' to
run the S-21 torture center.
''It is simply inconceivable that anything other than a lengthy
sentence of imprisonment should be imposed on him,'' she said.
Chhang Youk, director of Documentation Center of Cambodia, which
archives Khmer Rouge atrocities, suggested that Duch should be sentenced to
life imprisonment.
'He managed to hide his evilness in front of the public, thus life
imprisonment is a must,'' he told Kyodo News.
Others, however, commented that 40 years in prison is no different from
life imprisonment, since Duch is already 67 years old.
The Khmer Rouge are blamed for the deaths of at least 1.7 million
Cambodians in the late 1970s.