By SETH MYDANS
The New York Times
BANGKOK — Prosecutors and defense attorneys both asked for drastic changes this week in the sentence given to the former commandant of the Khmer Rouge’s main prison and torture center.
In a three-day appeal hearing outside Phnom Penh prosecutors asked for a maximum sentence of life in prison. The defense asked for an acquittal that could allow the immediate release of the defendant, Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch.
He is the first Khmer Rouge official to stand trial for atrocities committed when the radical Communist regime held power in Cambodia, causing the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people from 1975 to 1979. Four senior Khmer Rouge leaders are in custody in what is known as Case Two, which court officers say is expected to start this summer.
Last July Duch was sentenced to 35 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity after an emotional and sometimes lurid trial describing the torture and killing of inmates at the Tuol Sleng prison.
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