Kaing Guek Eav, también conocido como camarada Duch, fue el jefe del principal centro de torturas de Camboya durante el régimen comunista de los Jemeres Rojos, que se llevó por delante nada más y nada menos que a una cuarta parte de la población del país (1.7 millones de personas).
El camara Duch, a quien se le imputa la muerte de 17.000 camboyanos, ha admitido hoy su culpabilidad y ha pedido perdón a los familiares de las víctimas (solo 15 personas salieron vivas de aquella prisión).
El juicio contra Duch es el primero que se lleva a cabo después de tres décadas desde la caída de Pol Pot, durante las cuales los líderes de aquél régimen gozaron de impunidad. Duch tiene ahora 66 años. Cuatro líderes más de la cúpula comunista están a la espera de ser juzgados, entre ellos la cuñada de Pol Pot.
Kaing Guek Eav – known as Comrade Duch – was the director of Tuol Sleng or S-21, the regime's most notorious prison, where thousands of men, women and children were tortured and killed between 1977 and 1979. (...)
His apology, while expected, was nonetheless electrifying as, standing behind a bullet-proof screen, he faced a courtroom filled with hundreds of relatives of his victims, and told them: "I would like to emphasise that I am responsible for the crimes committed at S-21, especially the torture and execution of the people there. May I be permitted to apologise to the survivors of the regime and also the families of the victims whose loved ones died brutally at S-21." (...)
A 45-page indictment read to the court described Tuol Sleng as a place where victims were sent only to be executed. Prisoners were tortured into confessing imaginary crimes against the State then were blugeoned to death, had their throats and stomachs slit open, or were literally bled to death.
Witnesses told prosecution lawyers that child prisoners were dropped from the prison's upper floors to break their necks, while a group of foreign prisoners was burnt alive.
