Torture and Death Recounted at Cambodian Trial
As personal stories of terror and brutality fill the courtroom for the first time, even the defendant, Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch, has at times dropped his hard mask and broken down in tears.
“I send my respects to the soul of your wife,” he told one witness, Bou Meng, whose wife died in the prison and whom Duch (pronounced DOIK) had come to know when he pulled him from a row of shackled prisoners and put him to work as a painter.
Bou Meng put his face in his hands. Duch, his lips quivering, turned his back on the courtroom, and both men wept.
Duch, 66, is the first of five central figures from the Khmer Rouge regime to be tried here in a United Nations-backed tribunal. He faces charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes as commandant of Tuol Sleng prison, where at least 14,000 people were tortured and sent to their deaths.
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“I send my respects to the soul of your wife,” he told one witness, Bou Meng, whose wife died in the prison and whom Duch (pronounced DOIK) had come to know when he pulled him from a row of shackled prisoners and put him to work as a painter.
Bou Meng put his face in his hands. Duch, his lips quivering, turned his back on the courtroom, and both men wept.
Duch, 66, is the first of five central figures from the Khmer Rouge regime to be tried here in a United Nations-backed tribunal. He faces charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes as commandant of Tuol Sleng prison, where at least 14,000 people were tortured and sent to their deaths.