Legacy Matters

Weeping over his victims' graves

The chief executioner of the Khmer Rouge wept when he returned to the place where thousands died on his orders.

Around 15,000 people are believed to have been taken from the S-21 torture centre in Phnom Penh, where Duch was commandant, to Choeung Ek just outside the city, known as the killing fields.
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Duch, 65, a born-again Christian whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, wept and prayed before the tree on which his subordinates dashed out the brains of babies and small children.
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More than 1.7 million people are thought to have been executed or died as a result of torture, disease, starvation and overwork during the Maoist regime of the Khmer Rouge, which lasted from 1975 to 1979.

The five most senior surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge are now in custody, waiting trail. Duch, a former maths teacher, was arrested in 1999 after being tracked down by Nic Dunlop, the Irish journalist and photographer.

Khmer Rouge killer weeps over victims' graves.