Three Decades Later

Verdict due in Comrade Duch Khmer Rouge trial

25 July 2010 After a wait of more than three decades, some kind of justice is at last in sight for the victims of the Khmer Rouge.

As many as two million Cambodians died because of the policies of Pol Pot's government. They included the evacuation of cities, forced labour in the rice fields and the summary execution of those considered "enemies of the revolution". Continued

Long haul for Cambodia's genocide court

25 July 2010 Cambodia's UN-backed genocide court has taken four years to conclude its first case

Marooned in the dusty outskirts of Phnom Penh, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia are hardly in the most auspicious of locations.

White-elephant housing projects stand half-built along the road out of the city. And for much of the time since it started work in 2006, it seemed the Khmer Rouge Tribunal would remain unfinished as well.

But the court's combination of local and international legal officials have now steered one case to its conclusion.

The former prison chief known as Comrade Duch may not rank among the senior leadership of the Khmer Rouge, but he was in charge of Cambodia's most notorious detention centre during the four years Pol Pot and his comrades controlled the country.

Duch - by his own admission - supervised the systematic torture and execution of thousands of prisoners at the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh. Continued