Cambodia's U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal on Friday rejected an appeal filed by former Khmer Rouge jailer Kaing Khev Iev alias Duch against his conviction on crimes against humanity, and extended his earlier 35-year prison sentence to life behind bars.
During the hearings, Duch's lawyers had insisted that the tribunal lacked jurisdiction to convict their client. They also argued that their client was only following orders when he oversaw the deaths of some 15,000 people at Tuol Sleng torture prison in the late 1970s, stressing that Duch was obliged to carry out orders as he was only a low-ranking official in the regime.
But the prosecution said the defense should have made such an argument when Duch's trial began in early 2009, and reminded the tribunal that it had already found Dutch to be one among those responsible for the regime's crimes. The prosecutors also brought to its notice that Duch had "frequently acknowledged his responsibility for crimes committed" at the Tuol Sleng prison.
In July 2010, the tribunal had found Duch guilty of committing crimes against humanity, and sentenced him to 35 years in prison. He was accused of committing crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and premeditated murder of more than 15,000 people during the 1975-79 Communist rule.
In its earlier verdict, the tribunal was against giving Duch a lifer as he had shown remorse and because of his "potential for rehabilitation."
Though Duch was handed down a 35-year prison sentence by the tribunal, he effectively had to serve out only a 19-year term because of the time he had already served in prison and compensation for his illegal detention by the Cambodian military from 1999 to 2007. He was the first Khmer Rouge leader to face the tribunal, and to have confessed his role in the atrocities and expressed remorse.
Nevertheless, Duch appealed against his conviction later, basing his demand on grounds that the tribunal does not have jurisdiction to convict him. Describing his earlier conviction as a "miscarriage of justice," Duch insisted that he was only one among 196 Khmer Rouge prison chiefs who were merely following orders.
The prosecutors also appealed against Duch's sentencing, demanding that enslavement, imprisonment, torture, rape, extermination and other inhumane acts be added to his list of convictions. They were seeking the maximum 40-year jail term for Duch.
Duch was arrested in 1999 after British journalist Nic Dunlop discovered him in the Cambodian countryside. He was a member of Cambodia's infamous Khmer Rouge regime that took over the country in 1975 after ousting a U.S.-backed government shortly after the American pullout from neighboring Vietnam.
Three of Khmer Rouge's most senior surviving leaders are also facing charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and several other offenses under the Cambodian Criminal Code 1956, including murder, torture and religious persecution. All of them, aged between 78 and 85, have denied any wrongdoing.
The former Khmer Rouge leaders facing trial at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC) are: Nuon Chea--the group's former deputy supremo known as "Brother Number Two"; former foreign minister Ieng Sary and former head of state Khieu Samphan.
The ECCC was established in 2006 under an agreement signed by the U.N. and the Cambodian government to prosecute members of the Khmer Rouge regime. It is believed that the regime executed over two million fellow-Cambodians in its efforts to forcefully create a peasant society based on Maoist principles before the Vietnamese Army ousted it in 1979. The group's top leader, "Brother Number One" Pol Pot, died in 1998.
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June 12, 2026 17:14 ET Major central bank action was the focus this week in economic news. The European Central Bank became the first major central bank to move in response to the rising inflationary pressures in the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East. In North America, the U.S. inflation and trade data as well as Canada’s central bank decision gained attention. The Chinese trade data was the main news in Asia.