The first Khmer Rouge commander to face a UN-backed tribunal was sentenced to 35 years in prison yesterday for overseeing 14,000 deaths in the 1970s, but he will serve about half that.
Former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, known as “Comrade Duch,” received less than the maximum 40 years sought by the prosecution for his role in the regime blamed for 1.7 million deaths from 1975 to 1979.
Duch was found guilty of murder, torture, rape, crimes against humanity and other charges as chief of Tuol Sleng prison, a converted school known as S-21.
PHOTO: EPA
He betrayed no emotion as a judge read the verdict, which cut his sentence to 19 years for time already served. He could be released even earlier on parole if authorities believe he has been rehabilitated, the court said.
“We hoped this tribunal would strike hard at impunity, but if you can kill 14,000 people and serve only 19 years — 11 hours per life taken — what is that? It’s a joke,” said Theary Seng, who lost her father at S-21.
“My gut feeling is this has made the situation far worse for Cambodia,” she said. “It has taken a lot of faith out of the system and raised concerns of political interference.”
Duch had told the court he had no choice but to carry out orders. Prosecutors said he was “ideologically of the same mind” as the Khmer Rouge’s leaders and did nothing to stop rampant torture at his prison.
Some Cambodians wept after hearing the verdict, expressing outrage at the joint UN-Cambodian court, which has spent US$78.4 million in foreign donations to bring the first of five indicted Khmer Rouge officials to trial.
“There is no justice. I wanted life imprisonment for Duch,” said Hong Sovath, 47, sobbing.
Her father, a diplomat, was killed in the prison.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
RSS