Most seemed to have no idea why they had been imprisoned and tortured.

They included both men and women who had fought for the Khmer Rouge but were then deemed to be traitors. “He would tell others not to hurt the poor.”īut many of those who ended up in S-21 were very poor. “He felt for poor people,” Leam Sarun told RFA. “Duch was a very smart student,” said Leam Sarun, 70, who befriended Duch in 1962 when Leam Sarun served as a monk in a pagoda in Phnom Penh. How Duch transformed himself from diligent student and kindly teacher into chief executioner remains baffling, however. While the other four have denied any knowledge or responsibility for the killings that occurred throughout Cambodia, Duch has admitted that he had overseen torture and mass executions.

Once on trial, Duch became the only defendant yet to come close to telling the truth about what happened. Though he was not one of the highest-ranking of the five Khmer Rouge officials charged with crimes against humanity, Duch ran the most notorious torture center, a former high school known as S-21.ĭuch took meticulous notes. It was hoped that the much-delayed Khmer Rouge trial would bring a sense of justice to many of those who survived.Īnd Duch, now 67, seemed the right choice to stand trial first. Under Khmer Rouge rule, up to 2 million people perished from starvation, overwork, torture, and execution. Though they now know those leaders’ names, many Cambodians would probably prefer not to relive that painful period.

I saw the damage that they caused, including the 1975 deaths of several children when a rocket smashed into a primary school in Phnom Penh.īut none of us who witnessed the war, nor most Cambodians, ever knew who the secretive Khmer Rouge leaders were until after they came to power. I heard Khmer Rouge rockets whistling overhead. In 1970, I once came across a small group of Khmer Rouge defectors and on another occasion I took a photo of a single Khmer Rouge prisoner, arms tied behind his back. On July 26, Duch was sentenced to 35 years in jail, with 16 years off for time already served, for his role in overseeing thousands of deaths as a prison chief from 1975-1979.Īs a reporter in Cambodia during the war there from 1970-1975, I rarely saw the face of the Khmer Rouge. That’s the mind game that you play as you attempt to understand Kaing Guek Eav, widely known as Duch, the first Khmer Rouge official convicted for crimes against humanity.

Then try to imagine that same person turning into a mass murderer. The most conscientious student you ever met, the guy who became a caring teacher. Try to imagine the top student in your class.

The Lost Executioner by Nic Dunlop