Khmer Rouge Warden Asks to Be Freed

By SETH MYDANS
Published: November 27, 2009

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The nine-month trial of a former prison chief for the
communist Khmer Rouge ended Friday when the defendant unexpectedly asked to
be set free despite his repeated admissions of guilt.

“I would ask the chambers to release me,” said the defendant, Kaing Guek
Eav, 67, known as Duch, as he addressed the panel officially known as the
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. “Thank you very much.”

The judges took no immediate action, and they are expected to render their
verdict early next year.

The Khmer Rouge caused the deaths of 1.7 million people when it ruled
Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, and Duch is the first of five members of the
regime to face trial. Because of the complex structure of the mixed
Cambodian-United Nations tribunal, the trial of the other four defendants is
not expected to open until 2011.

In a formal statement to the court on Wednesday, Duch said he was “deeply
remorseful and profoundly affected by the destruction on such a
mind-boggling scale.” He apologized to the dead, to their families and to
all Cambodians.

Throughout the trial he has described in detail his role as the commandant
of Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21, where at least 14,000 people were
tortured and sent to their deaths. Almost no one who fell into his hands
survived.

Duch faces a possible term of life in prison for crimes against humanity and
other crimes, but the prosecution asked for a reduced sentence of 40 years
because of his cooperation and the five years of unlawful detention he
served earlier in a military jail.

There was disarray in the courtroom earlier in the week, when Duch’s two
lawyers, in separate statements, took sharply diverging approaches. His
Cambodian lawyer, Kar Savuth, broke from the defense strategy of admission
and apology on Wednesday and asserted that his client was not guilty.

On the following day, Duch’s French lawyer, François Roux, explicitly
disavowed that assertion. He emphasized Duch’s cooperation, including
sometimes pedantic descriptions of his techniques of prison management and
torture. But Mr. Roux sought to minimize his client’s significance, saying
the Tuol Sleng deaths amounted to only 1 percent of the overall toll.

“As long as the prosecution’s submissions make this man a scapegoat, you
will not advance the development of humankind one millimeter,” Mr. Roux said
in his closing statement. “No, Duch does not have to bear the whole horror
of the tragedy of Cambodia on his head.”

In his own statement, Duch said he was only following orders that came down
from the Khmer Rouge chief, Pol Pot, who died in 1998 without ever facing
trial.

“I could do nothing to help,” Duch said. “Pol Pot regarded these people as
thorns in his eyes.”

Duch read his apology from a prepared statement, as he had with a similar
apology after the start of the trial in February, and a prosecutor, William
Smith, said his partial and qualified admissions throughout the process
showed that he was “not facing up to who he was back in 1975 to 1979.”

Mr. Smith on Thursday asked the five-judge panel to “remember the victims”
and to “send a clear message to the future of Cambodia.”

“We gave the accused that opportunity about two days ago to say to this
court, to say to the people of Cambodia, ‘Yes, I committed these crimes. I
committed them willingly,’ ”Mr. Smith said.

“But what he’s done,” Mr. Smith added, “he’s had his international counsel
say he was a small cog in a machine.”

At a press conference following Duch’s request to be released, Mr. Smith
said, “We, the co-prosecutors, have been taken by surprise. It’s still in my
mind unclear whether there was agreement or disagreement between the
national and international counsel.

“The fact that he entered a request for an acquittal reinforces in our mind
that the remorse is limited.”

The completion of the case against Duch marked a moment of success in a
process that has been surrounded by controversy since the earliest
discussions about a tribunal in 1997 between Cambodia and the United
Nations. There have been continuing concerns over possible political
interference, corruption and the quality of the jurisprudence.

But on Thursday, Mr. Roux declared: “How many cynics said it would never
take place? And then the trial took place, with all the complexities we had
to deal with and transcend. But here we are. We have done it.”

The tribunal is now scheduled to move to “Case 2,” what is likely to be a
long and complicated proceeding for the other four defendants, who, unlike
Duch, had held official senior positions in the Khmer Rouge leadership.

These defendants — including 83-year-old Nuon Chea, “Brother No. 2” behind
Pol Pot — have denied their complicity, which is based on less concrete
accusations of command responsibility.

Their lawyers have already filed many motions are were expected add to the
complications in a case where legal maneuvering is likely to overshadow the
kind of dramatic accounts provided by Duch and the witnesses who testified
against him.