Cambodia's genocide tribunal opens with grisly allegations

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Khmer Rouge executioners threw victims to their deaths, bludgeoned them and then slit their bellies, or had medics draw so much blood that their lives drained away, prosecutors alleged yesterday at the opening trial of Cambodia's genocide tribunal.

The grisly accounts were part of the indictment read into the record for the regime's chief torturer and prison warden, Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch, the first suspect to face justice a full three decades after the Khmer Rouge 1975-79 reign of terror.

Disabled survivors of the regime joined young law students and other spectators in a custom-built courtroom on the outskirts of Phnom Penh to watch long-delayed proceedings start.

Duch, now 66, commanded the group's main S-21 prison, known as Tuol Sleng, where as many as 16,000 men, women, and children are believed to have been brutalized before being sent to their deaths.

"I have mixed feelings," said Bou Meng, 68, one of a handful of S-21 survivors. "I am angry because the Khmer Rouge killed my wife; I am happy because the Khmer Rouge leader was brought here today to be prosecuted.

"I hope that the court will give me justice and that justice will come soon," he said.

The tribunal alleges that Duch oversaw such atrocities as execution by bloodletting and the hurling of children down three stories to their deaths. He is charged with committing crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as torture and homicide, and could face a maximum penalty of life in prison. Cambodia has no death penalty.

The U.N.-assisted tribunal seeks to establish responsibility for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians from starvation, medical neglect, slavelike working conditions, and execution under the Khmer Rouge, whose top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.

Duch's job was to extract confessions of counterrevolutionary activity, but "every prisoner who arrived at S-21 was destined for execution," his 45-page indictment said.

No witnesses testified yesterday, and Duch spoke briefly only to confirm his identity and background for the court. But the reading of his indictment provided vivid snapshots of the "Killing Fields" years.

"According to Duch," it said, "only four methods of torture were allowed: beating, electrocution, placing a plastic bag over the head, and pouring water into the nose."

Among the more lurid accusations was that children of prisoners were taken from their parents to be put to death by dropping them from the third floor of a prison building to break their necks.

"Several witnesses said that prisoners were killed using steel clubs, cart axles, and water pipes to hit the base of their necks," the indictment said. "Prisoners were then kicked into the pits, where their handcuffs were removed. Finally the guards either cut open their bellies or their throats."

It also said some prisoners were killed by having medics withdraw large quantities of their blood, leaving them "unconscious and gasping."

"I think it really encapsulates the utter dehumanization," said professor Alex Hinton of Rutgers University's Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, who attended yesterday's hearing and who has written a book on the Cambodian genocide.

Despite the emotional weight of the allegations, a polite calm prevailed among the 500 spectators and the robed judges and lawyers, who conducted the proceedings on a stage behind a glass wall.

The defendant betrayed no emotion as he peered through glasses to read the accusations against them as court officials recited them aloud.

His French lawyer, Francois Roux, said in February that his client wished "to ask forgiveness from the victims but also from the Cambodian people. He will do so publicly. This is the very least he owes the victims."

Duch vanished after the Khmer Rouge fell from power, living under assumed names. He returned to teaching and converted to Christianity before being found by chance by a British journalist in Cambodia's countryside in 1999. Since then he has been in detention as wrangling delayed the tribunal's work.

The trial is expected to last several weeks.

Read and view more information about the Cambodia tribunal, including webcasts of

its proceedings, via http://go.philly.com/khmerEndText