Free Republic

Survivors of the regime’s reign of terror hailed the decision to increase the original jail term of 30 years handed in 2010 to Kaing Guek Eav. The the commander of Tuol Sleng prison, where at least 15,000 men, women and children deemed enemies of the regime were tortured and then executed in "killing fields" outside Phnom Penh. The (victorious Cambodia communist) regime attempted to create an ideal society by forcing city residents to work as peasants in the countryside, purging intellectuals, middle class people and any supposed enemies of the state... about one-third of the population, are believed to have...

CHOEUNG EK, Cambodia (Reuters) - The chief torturer under the Khmer Rouge "Killing Fields" regime wept and prayed on Tuesday as he led the judges who will try him for crimes against humanity around the mass graves for some of its victims. Duch, also known as Kaing Guek Eav, accompanied 80 judges, lawyers and other officials of a U.N.-backed tribunal to the 129 graves, uncovered after a Vietnamese invasion sent the Khmer Rouge back to the jungles in 1979. "I saw Duch kneel in front of the trees where Khmer Rouge soldiers smashed children to death," a policeman told reporters...

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - The former chief of a Khmer Rouge prison is willing to testify about the communist regime's atrocities that led to an estimated 1.7 million deaths in the 1970s, Cambodia's genocide tribunal announced Wednesday. Duch, 64, also known as Kaing Guek Eav, on Tuesday became the first top Khmer Rouge figure to be indicted for offenses committed when the Khmer Rouge held power from 1975-79. He was charged and detained by order of the U.N.-backed international tribunal's foreign and Cambodian judges. Duch headed the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, where some 16,000 suspected enemies of the regime...

BANGKOK, July 31 — A tribunal in Cambodia charged the commandant of the main Khmer Rouge torture house with crimes against humanity on Tuesday, bringing the first charge in a long-delayed trial in the deaths of 1.7 million people in the late 1970s. The commandant, Kaing Guek Eav, 64, known as Duch, was the leader of the Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh where at least 14,000 men, women and children were tortured and sent to killing fields. Only a handful survived. Two weeks ago, prosecutors announced that they had submitted to the tribunal a list of five potential defendants...

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Cambodia's international genocide tribunal charged the head of a Khmer Rouge torture center with crimes against humanity on Tuesday, a historic first indictment against a top figure in the communist regime that created Cambodia's infamous killing fields. The suspect, Kaing Guek Eav, has acknowledged heading the S-21 prison, where the Khmer Rouge's suspected enemies were tortured before being taken to killing fields near the capital. An estimated 1.7 million people died from hunger, disease, overwork and execution when the Khmer Rouge was in power in 1975-79. The 62-year-old, also known as Duch, was one of five...