ExKhmer Rouge prison chief charged

''Today, 31 July 2007, the CoInvestigating Judges of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia have charged Kaing Khek Ieu alias Duch for crimes against humanity and have placed him in provisional detention,'' it said.

Duch was transferred early Tuesday morning from a military detention center to a new detention facility of the U.N.Cambodia tribunal set up to try former Khmer Rouge figures for genocide and crimes against humanity.

Reach Sambath, spokesman of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, as the tribunal is formally known, told Kyodo News, ''Kaing Khek Ieu, better known as Duch, was brought to the ECCC this morning for initial interview by coinvestigating judges.''

He said that after his initial appearance in the presence of two lawyers and coprosecutors, the coinvestigating judges issued the charge and detained him at the ECCC detention center.

''He is the first person to be detained in the ECCC detention facility,'' he said.

Duch was transferred at 5:15 a.m. from the military detention center in central Phnom Penh to the ECCC detention facility some 15 kilometers west of the capital, marking the first time for a suspect to be placed in the custody of authorities of the joint tribunal.

Duch, who ran the notorious Tuol Sleng prison and torture center in Phnom Penh when the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia in the late 1970s, is also the first suspect to be questioned by the coinvestigating judges.

Duch, 64, is one of five former Khmer Rouge figures targeted for investigations that may bring them belatedly to trial. He is the only one in custody.

The other four are Nuon Chea, better known as Brother No. 2 in the Khmer Rouge hierarchy after the late Pol Pot who died in April 1998; Khieu Samphan, who was its head of state; Ieng Sary, who was the regime's foreign minister; and his wife Ieng Thirith, who was its social affairs minister.

Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan are living freely in Pailin, a former Khmer Rouge stronghold near the border with Thailand, while Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith reside in Phnom Penh.

Duch was arrested in May 1999, less than a month after he was found in Battambang Province by an American journalist who succeeded in interviewing him and obtaining a partial confession.

In the April 1999 interview, Duch, who claimed to have converted to Christianity, was quoted as saying, ''I feel very sorry about the killings and the past.''

''I wanted to a good communist. The people who died were good people. I am here now, God will decide my future.''

Duch said he understood that many of the estimated 14,000 prisoners held at Tuol Sleng, tortured and then killed while Duch was its director from 1975 to 1979, were ''innocent.''

''I tried to understand the punishment and orders to kill, I have a great difficulty in my life thinking that the people who died did nothing wrong.''

He said he carried out the killings under orders from Nuon Chea, who was head of the parliament and the party's ideologue.

Duch was born to a poor farming family in Battambang but helped out by a local businessman who put him through school, where he excelled.

He became a math professor at the prestigious Pedagogical Institute in Phnom Penh and became active in politics.

In the late 1960s, he was arrested and held for several months by the government of then Prince Norodom Sihanouk for leading a riot in which a bus was burned.

After his release, he fled to the jungle to join with the Khmer Rouge, and began his career interrogating and killing ''enemies.''

Duch headed the national security apparatus, reporting directly to the top leadership. But he contended that he never actually spoke to Pol Pot during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror.

Khmer Rouge was blamed for the deaths of at least 1.7 million Cambodians during the rules from 1975 to 1979.//Kyodo