October 19, 2010 - 4:14PM
AFP
Prosecutors at Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court on Tuesday demanded an increased sentence of life imprisonment for a former Khmer Rouge prison chief who was jailed for 30 years in July.
Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity for overseeing the mass murder of 15,000 men, women and children at Tuol Sleng prison in the late 1970s. Duch was initially handed 35 years, but the court reduced the sentence on the grounds that he had been detained illegally for years before the UN-backed tribunal was established.
"We are asking for life imprisonment, to be reduced for mitigating purposes to 45 years," Anees Ahmed, senior assistant co-prosecutor, told AFP after his team submitted their appeal document. It is to compensate for the period of unlawful detention that the co-prosecutors are asking that a life sentence be reduced to 45 years with no parole. "The co-prosecutors submit that a sentence of 35 years for crimes of this magnitude is plainly unjust," the appeal document read.
The co-prosecutors are also seeking additional convictions "for the crimes against humanity of extermination, enslavement, imprisonment, torture, rape, persecution on political grounds, and other inhumane acts", the document said. Led by "Brother Number One" Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge was responsible for one of the worst horrors of the 20th century, wiping out nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population through starvation, overwork and executions.
© 2010 AFP
(ECCC FILE): Prosecution's Appeal Against the Duch Judgement: http://www.eccc.gov.kh/english/cabinet/courtDoc/745/F10_EN.PDF
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MEMORY & JUSTICE
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About Me
- Duong Dara
- Dara Duong was born in 1971 in Battambang province, Cambodia. His life changed forever at age four, when the Khmer Rouge took over the country in 1975. During the regime that controlled Cambodia from 1975-1979, Dara’s father, grandparents, uncle and aunt were executed, along with almost 3 million other Cambodians. Dara’s mother managed to keep him and his brothers and sisters together and survive the years of the Khmer Rouge regime. However, when the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia, she did not want to live under Communist rule. She fled with her family to a refugee camp on the Cambodian-Thai border, where they lived for more than ten years. Since arriving in the United States, Dara’s goal has been to educate people about the rich Cambodian culture that the Khmer Rouge tried to destroy and about the genocide, so that the world will not stand by and allow such atrocities to occur again. Toward that end, he has created the Cambodian Cultural Museum and Killing Fields Memorial, which began in his garage and is now in White Center, Washington. Dara’s story is one of survival against enormous odds, one of perseverance, one of courage and hope.
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