A former Khmer Rouge prison chief was charged yesterday with crimes against humanity and placed in detention by Cambodia's UN-backed tribunal in the first legal action against regime leaders.
"The co-investigating judges of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia have charged Kang Kek Ieu, alias Duch, for crimes against humanity and have placed him in provisional detention," tribunal judges said in a statement.
Duch, one of five former leaders widely believed to be under investigation, ran the Khmer Rouge's notorious Tuol Sleng prison, a former high school that was converted into a torture center.
Some 16,000 men, women and children were brutalized there before being taken to the outskirts of the capital and executed.
Up to 2 million people died of starvation and overwork, or were executed, under the Khmer Rouge's 1975 to 1979 communist regime.
The Khmer Rouge also abolished religion, schools and currency, exiling millions to vast collective farms in a bid to create an agrarian utopia.
These crimes were part of a "common criminal plan constituting a systematic and unlawful denial of basic rights," prosecutors said earlier last month after submitting their cases for investigation.
The names of all those under investigation have not been made public.
However, prosecutors are reportedly also seeking charges of genocide and other crimes against former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan, as well as regime leader Pol Pot's deputy Nuon Chea and foreign minister Ieng Sary.
But Duch's lawyer, Kar Savuth, said Duch -- who taught mathematics before becoming a communist revolutionary in the late 1960s -- was not guilty of any crimes and was only following "verbal orders from the top."
"He had no rights to arrest or kill anyone," Kar Savuth said.
Tuol Sleng, in the center of Phnom Penh, has been turned into a genocide museum and is a popular tourist attraction.
Hundreds of mug shots of its former inmates are on display, along with torture devices and paintings graphically depicting the abuses.
After years of often acrimonious talks, the UN and Cambodia agreed in 2003 to a complex joint tribunal to try former Khmer Rouge leaders.
The three-year, US$56.3 million process has been underway for a year, with prosecutors compiling cases against suspects.
EYE ON 2027: The US military has placed equipment, materiel and personnel on the islands near China, a US officer said while warning about the threat from China The US Army Pacific (USARPAC) is deploying forces and equipment across the region based on the assumption that Beijing could possess the military capability and the intent to invade Taiwan by next year, a top US commander said on Tuesday. Speaking at the TechNet Indo-Pacific conference in Honolulu, US General Ronald Clark said that the threat posed by the so-called “Davidson window” is “still valid,” US military newspaper Stars and Stripes reported on Wednesday. The term stems from a 2021 warning by Admiral Philip Davidson, then-head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, that the threat of Chinese military action against Taiwan could materialize
‘ONE CHINA’ DECISION: A Cabinet spokesperson said that Pakistan had pandered to Beijing, and disregarded international rules and reality with the overflight ban The first Taiwanese commercial aircraft since restrictions were lifted flew over Pakistan yesterday morning following an abrupt U-turn by authorities to approve permits that were briefly revoked due to Islamabad’s “one China” policy. EVA Airways (長榮航空) Flight 65 from Taipei to Vienna entered Pakistani airspace at about 3:30am local time, Flightradar24 tracking data showed. All other Europe-bound EVA Air and China Airlines (華航) flights that departed late on Wednesday night into early yesterday morning opted to use Russian airspace, or go via India. The airlines had been forced to detour, including flying over Russia, since Sunday, after Pakistan shut its airspace to Taiwanese
BUILDING LINKS: Taipei and Europe should cooperate ‘so that no single supplier and no single government can hold our shared future hostage,’ an official said Beijing has no say in Taiwan’s partnerships with European countries, Formosa Club acting chair Rihards Kols, a member of the European Parliament (MEP), told a forum in Taipei yesterday. The Formosa Club, an interparliamentary group of European lawmakers, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs cohosted the Trusted Technology Forum for Democracies, focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) and drone technologies. In his opening speech, Kols said it is crucial that people meet and understand each other’s concerns, and work out how they can help. The club has brought European parliamentarians to the second annual forum to understand Taiwan better and seek
Taiwan yesterday welcomed and expressed appreciation for foreign ministers from the US, Japan and South Korea for emphasizing the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait at a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G20 in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Motegi Toshimitsu and South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun to review the progress of a trilateral partnership that aims to advance security and prosperity in a free and open Indo-Pacific region, the US Department of State said in a statement. They emphasized
RSS