Khmer Rouge trial: Who is Duch?

December 8, 2009

A devoted maths teacher before he turned revolutionary, Duch, the man who oversaw the Khmer Rouge's security apparatus, will today begin his trial at Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court.

"I have done very bad things in my life," he confessed to journalists who tracked him down in 1999. "Now it is time for (the consequences) of my actions."

The 66-year-old Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, allegedly oversaw the torture and extermination of over 12,000 men, women and children at the Khmer Rouge's Tuol Sleng prison during the regime's 1975-1979 rule.

Duch was formally arrested by Cambodia's genocide tribunal in July 2007, becoming the first top Khmer Rouge cadre to be detained, and charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and premeditated murder.

"He is meticulous, conscientious, control-oriented, attentive to detail and seeks recognition from his superiors," said a psychological examination by the UN-backed court.

He is said to have been feared by nearly everyone who worked under him at the prison in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.

Most who worked there were uneducated teenage boys, who he said could be easily indoctrinated because they were "like a blank piece of paper."

He has consistently recognised the crimes committed under his command of the regime's killing machine, where prisoners were tortured into denouncing themselves and others as agents of the CIA, KGB and Vietnamese Communist Party.

Duch was first arrested in 1999 after photojournalist Nic Dunlop uncovered him earlier that year working for a Christian relief agency in western Cambodia.

Before that, he was long thought dead following his disappearance after Vietnam's ouster of the Khmer Rouge in 1979.

Instead, Duch had converted to Christianity and worked for relief organisations along the Cambodian-Thai border.

"I feel very sorry about the killings and the past -- I wanted to be a good communist; I did not take any pleasure in my work," he told Dunlop. "All the confessions of the prisoners -- I worried, is that true or not?"

Duch later told tribunal investigators he believed the inner circle of Khmer Rouge leaders did not believe the confessions either, but used them as "excuses to eliminate those who represented obstacles."

Born in 1942 in central Cambodia, Duch was a top student and is remembered as a sincere teacher devoted to helping the poor, before he fled to the Khmer Rouge in 1970 as a reaction to injustice in then-volatile Cambodia.

That decision to join the communist guerrilla movement was influenced by one of his high school instructors who would later be executed at Tuol Sleng.

"I joined the Khmer Rouge in order to liberate my people and not commit crimes," Duch told tribunal investigators. "I became both an actor in criminal acts and also a hostage of the regime."

Inside the rebel-controlled zones, Duch is said to have been appointed head of special security.

He allegedly oversaw a series of prisons before being made head of Tuol Sleng after the regime seized the capital in 1975.

What began as only a few dozen prisoners turned into a daily torrent of condemned coming through Tuol Sleng as the regime repeatedly purged itself of its "enemies."

Ever meticulous, Duch built up a huge archive of photos, confessions and other documents with which the final horrible months of thousands of inmates' lives can be traced.

After the Khmer Rouge fell from power, he maintained posts within the communist movement as it battled Vietnam-backed troops along the Thai border. He also taught English and maths in at least one refugee camp.

Shortly after his wife was murdered in 1995, Duch began attending Christian prayer meetings and was later baptised by Christopher LaPel, an evangelical Khmer-American minister.

In a 1999 interview with Time magazine, LaPel remembered Duch as an enthusiastic convert, but said there were signs pointing to his dark past.

"Before he received Christ, he said he did a lot of bad things in his life. He said: 'Pastor Christopher, I don't know if my brothers and sisters can forgive the sins I've committed against the people'," LaPel was quoted as saying at the time.

**Source AFP