Prosecutors Seek 40 Years In Prison For Khmer Rouge Jailer

Given the scale of the horrors that were Cambodia's killing fields, even a 40-year prison sentence for participating in the crimes against humanity that occurred during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror will likely seem disproportionally lenient to many.

Nevertheless, that's what prosecutors in the trial of Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Comrade Duch (pronounced DOIK), have asked for.

Duch is the first high-ranking former Khmer Rouge official to be charged for crimes that resulted in the deaths of millions of Cambodians from 1975 to 1979 when a particularly vicious form of communism led by despot Pol Pot controlled that unfortunate nation.

As NPR's Michael Sullivan reported today on Morning Edition:

MICHAEL: Duch's trial has been going on for nine months now and during that time the court has heard grisly detail-from survivors and from the Khmer Rouge's own meticulous record keeping-about the horrors inflicted on prisoners at Toul Sleng, a list repeated by co-prosecutor William Smith today as the prosecution wrapped up it's case.

Savage beatings, fingernails and toenails pulled out with pliers, electrocution, all were part of the Toul Sleng experience, Smith said, which ended for almost all of the prisoners at the killing field of Choeung Ek

.

SMITH: Blindfolded and handcuffed, prisoners were forced to kneel in the dark next to their own burial pits. There they waited until the blow of a shovel or cart axle broke the back of their heads. And if that did not kill them, their throats were slit until they were kicked into their grave.

 

MICHAEL: The man accused of overseeing those executions isn't denying his guilt. Kaing Guek Eav today looked calm — relaxed even — in his blue button down oxford and khakis as the prosecutor spoke. The 67-year old's defense, one he's repeated throughout the trial, that he was simply a 'cog in a machine' doing the bidding of his superiors lest he be killed, too. Duch, speaking through a translator, nonetheless apologized again today.

DUCH (through translator): I am solely and individually responsible for the loss of at least 12,380 lives, I still and forever wish to most respectfully and humbly apologize to the lost souls.

MICHAEL: Then Duch spoke to the handful of prisoners who managed to make it out of Toul Sleng alive.

DUCH (through translator) : To the survivors I stand by my acknowledgement of all crimes inflicted against you at S21. I acknowledge them in both the legal and moral context.

MICHAEL: Outside the courtroom today, one of the survivors was having none of it. Chum Mey, who lost his wife and two children to the Khmer Rouge, a man imprisoned at Toul Sleng for allegedly being a CIA spy, says his former jailer's remorse and pleas for forgiveness are both insincere and insufficient. The prosecution's recommendation of 40 years in prison for Duch he says, not nearly enough.