Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch, as his good buddies know him, served as the former chief jailer of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge. He ran the S-21 prison where as many as 14,000 people were tortured and killed between 1975 and 1979. This week he became the first former Khmer Rouge leader to be tried for war crimes committed during the group's rule in the 1970s. A UN-backed tribunal sentenced him on Monday of this week to 35 years in prison for his part in the brutality. During the 77-day proceedings, Duch acknowledged responsibility and pleaded guilty, but the judges actually reduced the sentence to just 19 years to take into account the time he had been detained before the trial. Relatives of the victims present at the sentencing burst into tears at the reduced sentence.
Kar Savuth, Duch's lawyer, has said they will appeal the court's decision. Well, of course. Duch's expectation is apparently that he should be acquitted on the grounds that he was not a senior member of the Khmer Rouge hierarchy. Now there's one hell of a good reason to be set free, no matter how many people you had a hand in murdering. It is farcical that he should make such an appeal; farcical that any lawyer would be so willing to sully his own soul as to take on this monster's defense.
Such a pity that some of his victim's kin could not have had an hour alone in some dark alley with this vicious criminal, just to maybe chat a little about what he did at prison S-21. Not that I'm suggesting any personal "killing field" for Duch. I'm just sure they could have all had a jolly old time, and the bereaved kin could have walked away feeling better. Any pieces of filth left after the chat could just have been thrown on the dung heap.
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