On Tuesday Cambodia's
Khmer Rouge court backed by the U.N., had its first public hearing in Phnom Penh. The first to
appear was Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, chief torturer of the 1970s regime.
He was of the first of the five defendants that are
scheduled to appear before the tribunal for a pretrial hearing, CNN reports.
He is charged for carrying out mass executions and torture
of almost 17,000 people during the regime. He served as a commandant of the Tuol
Sleng interrogation center in Phnom
Penh.
Out of the 17,000 people that were tortured during that time,
only seven of them survived. Every victim was recorded in files and
photographs.
The purpose of the tribunal is to trial the surviving
leaders of the Khmer Rouge. They are charged with crimes against humanity.
The tribunal is made up from three Cambodian and two
international jurists. The trial is expected to last until 2010.
Kaing Guek Eav was first arrested in 1999 and was jailed for
eight years without trial. Now his lawyers argue that those years are grounds
for his release.
One of his lawyers, Cambodian Kar Savuth, said: “The
detention of Duch for more than eight years gravely violates Cambodian and international
human rights laws,” AFP reports.
Prosecutors are saying that if Duch goes free, he may try to
flee from justice.
On Tuesday he answered court’s questions and said: “I am
appealing because I have been jailed without trial for eight years, six months
and 10 days already.”
He was driven to the court house in a bullet proof vehicle
from the facility center that was only 50 meters away. The vehicle was flanked
by dozens of security officers.
Former Khmer Rouge Prime Minister, Khieu Samphan, was
arrested on Monday and charged. He is the fifth ex-Khmer Rouge official that
was arrested by the tribunal since September.
According to a spokesman U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,
Yves Sorokobi, he will have a pretrial hearing on Wednesday or Thursday.
The regime's former foreign minister, Ieng Sary, and his
wife, Ieng Thirith, were arrested last week by the U.N. tribunal and were
charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The same charges are faced by surviving Khmer Rouge leader,
Nuon Chea, who was arrested in September.
More than 2 million people died in the party’s efforts to
transform Cambodia
into an agrarian utopia, between 1975 and 1979.
