AT THE KHMER ROUGE TRIBUNAL TODAY

PHOTOS: http://dccam.org/Projects/Living_Doc/Photos/2011/Duch_Appeal_at_the_ECCC_March_28_2011/index.html
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NEWS:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12877629

British Broadcasting CorporationHome
28 March 2011 Last updated at 08:03 GMT
Khmer Rouge jailer Duch appeals against convictionBy
Guy De Launey
BBC News, Phnom Penh

A UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia is hearing the appeal of a former Khmer Rouge member who was convicted of crimes against humanity.

Kaing Guek Eav was in charge of a detention centre in the late 1970s and oversaw the deaths of around 15,000 people.

But now the man best known as Comrade Duch is arguing he should not have been tried at all.

The Khmer Rouge tribunal has a strictly defined role.

That is to bring to justice the surviving senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge and the people most responsible for the worst crimes committed during the four years Pol Pot's government controlled Cambodia.

Comrade Duch claims he falls into neither category.

Baffling

He has admitted that he ran the notorious S-21 detention centre in Phnom Penh.

During the public phase of his trial he even apologised to relatives of the people who died there.

But he insisted that he was only following orders and that he and his family might have been killed if he had not done as he was told.

The trial chamber rejected his arguments and passed a sentence of 35 years for crimes against humanity, torture and pre-meditated murder.

Youk Chhang is the director of the Documentation Centre which investigated the events at S-21.

He says Cambodians would be baffled by Duch's appeal.

"It's difficult for the public in general to understand the court procedure - they're not lawyers," he said.

"And it's because Duch himself has said all these things during the hearing already: 'Well, I admit it; now I don't'. And then people find that crazy."

The appeal hearing should be followed within months by the long-awaited second trial at the tribunal.

Four senior surviving Khmer Rouge leaders are facing charges of genocide for creating the policies which led to the deaths of around 2m people.

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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/7493935.html
Ex-Khmer Rouge prison chief appeals sentence
By MIKE ECKEL Associated Press © 2011 The Associated Press
March 27, 2011, 11:42PM

Mark Peters AP
In this photo released by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of
Cambodia, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, center, who ran the notorious
Toul Sleng, a top secret detention center for the worst "enemies" of the
state, looks on during his appealing at the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal
in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, March 28, 2011. The man who admitted
overseeing the killing of 16,000 people as the Khmer Rouge's chief prison
warden returns to the courtroom to appeal his 19-year prison sentence on
charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. (AP Photo/ Mark Peters,
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia)

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The man who admitted to overseeing the torture and
killing of 16,000 people as the Khmer Rouge's chief prison warden returned
to the courtroom Monday in Cambodia to appeal his 19-year prison sentence
for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Kaing Guek Eav — also known as Duch — is the only person so far to be tried
by a special U.N.-backed tribunal set up to investigate and prosecute
officials from the brutal ultra-Marxist regime whose four-year rule in the
1970s led to the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people.

The 68-year-old Duch was sentenced last July to 35 years in prison for war
crimes and crimes against humanity, but the sentenced was commuted to 19
years due to time already served and other technicalities.

Defense lawyers have argued that Duch was wrongfully convicted because the
tribunal — known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia —
was supposed to try only senior Khmer Rouge leaders. They argue that Duch
was not a top leader and was merely following orders.

Duch briefly told the court Monday that his case hinged on "personal
jurisdiction" — that is, whether the court had authority to prosecute him.
He then sat impassively as his lawyer spoke.

"Duch was the chairman of a prison guard, of a security center. How could he
be considered to be one of those most responsible for the crimes?" defense
lawyer Kar Savuth said. "He was of course a perpetrator, but he received
orders from his superiors like at other prisons."

Kar argued that Duch was a victim of selective prosecution, since the court
has not sought to indict chiefs of the Khmer Rouge's other 195 prisons,
where he said far more people died than under Duch.

"Duch was just a minor secretary who had no real authority to make any real
decisions or do anything contradictory to the orders of the upper echelon,"
Kar Savuth said.

Prosecutors and others have widely criticized the sentence as too lenient.
Prosecutors have filed a separate appeal and were scheduled to present their
arguments after the defense, with the proceedings scheduled to end by
midweek. A ruling was expected "in the next few months," said tribunal
spokesman Reach Sambath.

Victims and relatives of the Khmer Rouge have expressed outrage by the
sentence, which could allow Duch to one day walk free.

During his 77-day trial, Duch admitted to overseeing the deaths of up to
16,000 people who passed through the gates of the notorious Toul Sleng
prison — also known as S-21 — in Phnom Penh. Prisoners were accused of being
enemies of the regime, and many were tortured into making false confessions.
Torture methods included pulling out prisoners' toenails, administering
electric shocks and waterboarding — a form of simulated drowning.

The hearings will once again focus attention on the U.N. court as it gears
up for another trial later this year of four senior Khmer Rouge leaders:
Nuon Chea, the Khmer Rouge's chief ideologist; Khieu Samphan, its former
head of state; Ieng Sary, its foreign minister; and his wife Ieng Thirith,
who was minister for social affairs.

Critics say the tribunal — 10 years and $100 million in the making — has
been too slow to investigate potential suspects and bring them to trial. The
four leaders scheduled to stand trial in June are all in their 70s and 80s
and in poor health.

The court has also faced allegations of corruption and has been stonewalled
by the current Cambodian government headed by Prime Minister Hun Sen,
himself a former Khmer Rouge military commander. Hun Sen has vehemently
fought the tribunal's efforts to bring more Khmer Rouge officials to
justice, arguing that such moves could destabilize the poor country.

The Khmer Rouge's top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.

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