Cambodia: death of Douch, the Khmer Rouge torturer

Kaing Guek Eav, alias Douch, one of the main cadres of the Maoist Khmer Rouge regime, during a hearing at the special tribunal for Cambodia, March 20, 2012. AFP PHOTO / ECCC / NHET

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The former torturer Douch, head of Phnom Penh prison under the Cambodian Khmer Rouge regime, where some 15,000 people were tortured before being executed, died on Wednesday at the age of 77.

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Born in 1942, Kaing Guek Eav, alias Douch, " 

 " said Neth Pheaktra, spokesman for the Cambodian UN-sponsored tribunal to try crimes of the ultra-Maoist regime.

"

 " a source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The ex-head of Tuol Sleng or S21, the capital's central prison between 1975 and 1979, was the first Khmer Rouge convicted by a court of war crimes.

In 2010, at first instance, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Then, two years later, on appeal,

.

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After years spent in hiding, the former math teacher was found in 1999 by an Irish photographer while working for a Christian non-governmental organization.

Before his judges, during the first trial, he explained at length the significance of the dumpsters of documents discovered in the prison at the fall of the regime, and the process during which the tortured were then taken to an execution site a few kilometers from the.

But the accused

of confession and cooperation with the courts, dismissed his French lawyer and demanded his release, calling himself a simple secretary of the regime.

(AFP)

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