Judges preparing for first trial on genocide in Cambodia

[Coventina]

Source: International Herald-Tribune

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Cambodian and international judges are making final preparations to begin the trial of the former commander of a Khmer Rouge torture center who is charged with crimes against humanity, a tribunal official said Thursday.

The trial of Kaing Guek Eav, 65, alias Duch, who headed the notorious S-21 prison and torture center, is scheduled for late September, said Helen Jarvis, a spokeswoman for the United Nations-assisted tribunal.

The trial is a key step in Cambodia's long wait for justice for atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge rule in the late 1970s. Some 1.7 million people perished.

"To have the director of that institution on trial for crimes committed will be of enormous importance in understanding the Democratic Kampuchea regime," Jarvis said, referring to the Khmer Rouge's official name at the time. The prison in Phnom Penh was the Khmer Rouge's largest torture facility, and has now become the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.



Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/31/asia/AS-Cambodia-Khmer-Rouge.php

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I was at Tuol Sleng earlier this year, I cannot even begin to describe the horror of that experience - and that was as a museum!

I will be following Duch's trial closely. I hope every one of those thugs lives to stand trial...