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Khmer Rouge Official to Reveal Crimes
Prosecutors have recommended that five Khmer Rouge leaders be indicted, and all three are widely believed to be on their list, although no names besides Duch's have been released.
According to a transcript of a 1999 government interview obtained by The Associated Press, Duch said "Nuon Chea (also) had direct command over S-21."
  In this photo from the Cambodian Documentation Center shows Kaing Khek Iev, left, also know as Duch, and his aid Sok in Phnom Penh in 1976. Duch, who ordered the torture and killing of at least 14,000 men, women and children, in the late 1970's has been take to the Cambodian genocide tribunal headquarters Tuesday, July 31, 2007, to be questioned by judges. On July 18, 2007, prosecutors submitted to the investigating judges the cases of five former Khmer Rouge leaders recommended to stand trial. The names of the five suspects have not been revealed. (AP Photo/Documentation Center, File) (AP) PHOTOS |
"I was under other people's command, and I would have died if I disobeyed it. I did it without any pleasure, and any fault should be blamed on the (Khmer Rouge leadership), not me," he told the government interviewer soon after his arrest in May 1999. Prior to that he had spent decades under an assumed name.
Nuon Chea, the right-hand man to Pol Pot, has consistently denied any responsibility for the mass brutality.
"I was president of the National Assembly and had nothing to do with the operation of the government," he told the AP in an interview last month. "Sometimes I didn't know what they were doing because I was in the assembly."
"I will go to the court and don't care if people believe me or not," he said.
The judges' detention order for Duch cited prosecutors' allegations that "under his authority, countless abuses were allegedly committed against the civilian population."
The abuses included "arbitrary detention, torture and other inhumane acts, mass executions, which occurred within a political context of widespread or systematic abuses and constitute crimes against humanity," it said.
It said one of Duch's lawyers had challenged the detention on the basis "that the other suspects remain at liberty," and requested his client be released on bail.
The judges denied the request, saying granting him freedom could provoke public anger.
Duch's current provisional detention will last up to one year and can be extended for another year if the investigating judges uncover new crimes in which he was implicated, said tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath.
According to tribunal rules, the maximum penalty for conviction of crimes is life imprisonment.
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