Phnom Penh, Cambodia – The former chief of a Khmer Rouge prison is willing to testify about the communist regime’s atrocities that led to an estimated 1.7 million deaths in the 1970s, Cambodia’s genocide tribunal announced Wednesday.
Duch, 64, also known as Kaing Guek Eav, on Tuesday became the first top Khmer Rouge figure to be indicted for offenses committed when the Khmer Rouge held power in 1975-79. He was charged and detained by order of the U.N.-backed international tribunal’s foreign and Cambodian judges.
Duch headed the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, where about 16,000 suspected enemies of the regime were tortured before being taken out and executed on what later became known as the “killing fields” near the city. Only about a dozen prisoners are thought to have survived.
The judges’ detention order, posted Wednesday on the tribunal’s website (www.eccc.gov.kh), said Duch had acknowledged that he headed S-21 and was “ready to reveal the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge.”
The tribunal also announced that one of the two lawyers expected to defend Duch is Francois Roux, a human rights activist from France best known for helping defend Zacarias Moussaoui, who was convicted for his role in the 2001 terrorist attacks.
