Khmer Rouge commander lenient sentence outrage many Cambodians

(July 27, 2010) The first Khmer Rouge commander to face a United Nations-backed tribunal was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Monday for overseeing 14,000 deaths in the 1970s, but he'll serve about half that, angering many Cambodians. Former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav (Kang Gherk Erv), known as Duch (Doik), received less than the maximum 40 years sought by the prosecution for his role in the ultra-communist "Killing Fields" regime blamed for 1.7 million deaths from 1975 to 1979. Duch (Doik) 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 that symbolised the horrors of a regime that wiped out nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population. He betrayed no emotion as a judge read the verdict, which cut his sentence to 19 years for time already served. Some Cambodians wept after hearing the verdict, expressing outrage at the joint U.N.-Cambodian court, which has spent $78.4 million of foreign donations over five years to bring the first of five indicted Khmer Rouge officials to trial. Prosecutors insisted Duch (Doik) was "ideologically of the same mind" as the Khmer Rouge's top leaders and did nothing to stop rampant torture at his prison.