In its first verdict, the U.N.-backed tribunal established in 2006 to try the leaders and decision makers of the Pol Pot regime was convicted of war crimes against humanity and to 35 years in prison for the murders of as many of 14,000 people. Kaing Guek Eav, 67, is best known as "Duch" in the Cambodian Genocide. In Duch's case, the prosecution had recommended 40 years and said following the verdict that they were considering an appeal. Time Magazine reported, "In the 500-seat public gallery, which was filled to capacity, the largest of any courtroom in the world, there was uncomprehending silence as Judge Nil Nonn, the Trial Chamber's president, read out the judgement and the arithmetic of the sentence's reductions.
Time Magazine reporter Douglas Gillison wrote "Pol Pot and the leaders of the communist insurgency that seized Phnom Penh in 1975 put Dutch in the service of their implacable paranoid belief that secret enemies were hiding everywhere. Duch, a former schoolteacher turned chief of Cambodia's secret police, known by the codename of S-21, into a killing machine, sacrificing men, women and children to his superior' foregone conclusions. Under torture, thousands were forced to invent fantastic confessions of treachery for the CIA, the KGB or Vietnamese agents; though interrogators knew these were false."
Peter Maguire, author of "Facing Death in Cambodia" said "His conviction was an easy knockout. Now that the legal mismatch is over, the long delayed main event - the trial of the aging Khmer Rouge political leaders - Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea and Ieng Thirith - can begin.
Sources:
Gillison, Douglas (July 26, 2010). A Khmer Rouge sentence is denounced as too lenient. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2006475,00.html
Maguire, Peter (July 28, 2010). Cambodia's Troubled Tribunal. International Herald Tribune (Op Ed Contributer). http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/opinion/29iht-edmaguire.html
