By Ek Madra
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - The Khmer Rouge's chief torturer and jailer had to "kill or be killed" and operate like an "obedient machine," his lawyer said on Thursday in defending the first member of Cambodia's murderous regime to face justice.
In the final two days of testimony in the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal, a lawyer for the commander of the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison said his client's life was at stake when he ordered the murder of more than 14,000 people in the 1970s.
Speaking a day after prosecutors asked the court to sentence Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, to 40 years in prison, the lawyer said the tribunal should show leniency because the 67-year-old former maths teacher had fully cooperated.
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