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Ex-Khmer Rouge prison chief admits training staff to use torture

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] Former Khmer Rouge prison head Kaing Guek Eav, also known as "Duch," testified in court Thursday that he trained staff to elicit confessions from prisoners through torture. Kaing also testified before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) as to the chain of command at the notorious S-21 prison camp. On Wednesday, Kaing testified that he was tricked by UN officials in 1999 into giving a recorded confession. Kaing is being tried in the ECCC on mass torture and murder charges stemming from the killing of prisoners at the S-21 prison he oversaw. Kaing has admitted responsibility for the deaths of prisoners at S-21. Kaing recently requested release to a 'safe house' during Cambodia genocide trial, though he lost a similar appeal of his pre-trial detention in 2007. His trial is the first of eight that the ECCC hopes to hear against former members of the Khmer Rouge, which has been accused of murdering 1.7 million Cambodians during its nearly four-year reign. The ECCC has long been plagued with accusations of corruption and inadequate funding, with greater problems in recent years. In March, the ECCC reported that it would be unable to pay its Cambodian employees for that month, one year after the court had requested $114 million dollars from the UN. In February, Human Rights Watch warned that the ECCC trials were in danger of being tainted for their failure to follow fair trial standards, and in January a Cambodian court agreed to hear a corruption case involving two ECCC judges.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on April 23, 2009 (boomark / email).