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Comrade Duch, the Khmer Rouge official who converted a high school into the notorious S-21 prison camp, will appeal his 30-year gaol term for crimes against humanity.
Defence lawyers say that the sentence is completely out of proportion to the crime, noting that Duch’s own prisoners rarely served more than a few days.
AFP reports that Duch had initially sought an acquittal based on his comparatively low rank in the Khmer Rouge hierarchy. However the prosecution showed that in May 1976 Duch achieved a career best ranking of Brother Number Eight, enough to be seeded.
S-21 was a high school before the Khmer Rouge began converting it into a centre for imprisonment, torture and execution—or, according to the regime’s chilling euphemism, “building the education revolution.”
The Daily Grind understands that in sentencing Duch to 30 years, Judge Nil Nonn told the defendant that “from now on, the only nightmarish Cambodian prison you’ll ever see is… I guess… whichever one you happen to be in.”
The Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975 promising to be tough on Cambodia, tough on the causes of Cambodia. Concerns about unemployment were addressed with a comprehensive plan to increase back-breaking toil, along with a back-breaking-toil-for-the-dole scheme.
But by 1979, the main issue was border security, in particular the fact that soldiers from neighbouring Vietnam had arrived to take over.
Even today, 31 years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodians are still haunted by the regime’s ghastly S-21 prison and its antioxidant-rich S-26 baby formula.
