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| Both defence and prosecution appealing against Duch’s punishment (Reuters/ECCC/Handout) |
Monday, March 28, 2011
RFI
Lawyers for former Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch have called for his release arguing that he was only acting under orders when he oversaw the deaths of some 15,000 people at the Tuol Sleng prison in the late 1970s.
Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, was sentenced to 30 years in jail in July by Cambodia’s UN-backed war crimes court for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was the first Khmer Rouge official to face an international tribunal and both the defence and prosecution are appealing against the sentence in a three-day hearing at the court.
His lawyer claims that Duch had only the very lowest rank in the communist party and was simply following orders from his superiors. The ‘superior orders’ defence was most notably used during the Nuremberg trials after World War Two when it was ruled that it did not absolve Nazi war criminals of responsibility for their actions.
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