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| Torture rack used at S-21, on display at Tuol Sleng museum. (Photo: Simon Roughneen) |
April 3, 2011
Simon Roughneen
The Irrawaddy (Burma)
Clad in a blue shirt under a cream jacket, Kaing Guak Eav sat back, seemingly relaxed to the point of boredom. The judge, prosecution and defense debated the finer points of the relationship between Cambodia’s penal code and the tribunal set up to examine crimes committed under Khmer Rouge rule from 1975 to 1978. Meanwhile, the man known as Comrade Duch, sitting alone two rows behind his legal team, punctuated an impassive stillness with the occasional bout of fidgety restlessness.
As head of the S-21 torture camp, Duch—pronounced “Doik”—oversaw the torture of around 16,000 prisoners at the former school, now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Most of the detainees were later murdered at Choeung Ek, one of the country’s thousands of mass graves or “Killing Fields,” around 15 miles from Phnom Penh’s city center. S-21 was only one of over 190 similar detention, torture and murder camps set up all over Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge era.
Duch was not part of the Khmer Rouge leadership and is the only one of the five accused to have expressed remorse for his crimes, offering at one point to face a public stoning and to allow victims to visit him in jail. But he made a u-turn on the final day of his trial in November 2009, asking to be acquitted and freed, which left many wondering if his contrition was sincere.
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