Obituaries

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Brutal jailer for the Khmer Rouge, serial mass murderer

Kang Kek Iew or Kaing Kek Iev, also romanized as Kaing Guek Eav (Khmer: កាំង ហ្គេកអ៊ាវ), nom de guerre Comrade Duch or Deuch (មិត្តឌុច); or Hang Pin, (17 November 1942 – 2 September 2020)[1] was a Cambodian war criminal and leader in the Khmer Rouge movement, which ruled Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979. As the head of the government's internal security branch (Santebal), he oversaw the Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison camp where thousands were held for interrogation and torture, after which the vast majority of these prisoners were eventually executed.
He was the first Khmer Rouge leader to be tried by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime,[2] and was convicted of crimes against humanity, murder, and torture for his role during the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia and sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment. On 2 February 2012, his sentence was extended to life imprisonment by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.
Even though he was responsible for the death of thousands of people, Kang Kek Iew, unlike other Khmer Rouge cadres, did not dismiss or justify his crimes. He admitted that he had been wrong and that he had done horrible things; he said that he repented and that he had converted to Christianity. During his trial, he provided detailed accounts of what happened inside S-21 and inside the Khmer Rouge regime, and this helped shed light on the regime and other cadres' responsibility.[3]


In 1964, Kek Iew began studying for his teaching certificate in Mathematics, a subject he loved, at the Institut de Pédagogie.[8] The Institute was a cradle of activism under the directorship of Son Sen who was later to emerge as the Defence Minister of the Khmer Rouge and Duch's immediate superior.
On 28 August 1966, Kek Iew received his teaching certificate and was posted to a lycée in Skoun, a small town in Kampong Cham Province. He was a good teacher, remembered as earnest and committed by his pupils.[6][page needed] He joined the Communist Party of Kampuchea in 1967. Following the arrest of three of his students, he fled to the Khmer Rouge base in Chamkar Leu District where he was accepted as a full member of the Communist Party of Kampuchea.

A few months later, he was arrested and witnessed others being tortured at the Prey Sar prison[6][page needed] by Norodom Sihanouk's police for engaging in communist activities.[8] He was held without trial for the next two years. In 1970, when he was released following the amnesty granted to political prisoners by Lon Nol, he joined the Khmer Rouge rebels in the Cardamom Mountains bordering Thailand.

After the Khmer Rouge victory in April 1975 Duch and his men set up prisons throughout the capital including the infamous Tuol Sleng prison. Duch's request for a transfer in May 1975[14] to the Industrial Sector of government was denied.[8] The Tuol Sleng prison camp was initially headed by In Lon aka Comrade Nath with Duch acting as deputy.[6][page needed] Subsequently, In Lon was transferred and Duch promoted to be the Director.[15] By May 1976 all the prisons in Phnom Penh were consolidated and relocated to Tuol Sleng.


Prisons like Tuol Sleng were created to cleanse the population of suspected enemies of the revolution. In Tuol Sleng Duch ordered the execution of prisoners after their interrogation was completed. For example, on a list containing the names of 17 prisoners (eight teenagers and nine children), he wrote the order “Smash them to pieces.” On a longer list of detainees, his annotation reads “smash: 115; keep: 44 persons.” The text below this annotation reads “Comrade Duch proposed to Angkar; Angkar agreed.” On a list of 20 female detainees, Duch wrote annotations for each of them, ordering: “take away for execution,” “keep for interrogation” or “medical experiment". At least 100 detainees died after having all of their blood drawn for transfusions for wounded soldiers. Surgical operations were also performed on detainees in order to train medical staff.[16]
Duch impressed his superiors with his work and was appointed the head of Democratic Kampuchea's dreaded "special branch"; the Santebal.
As the party purges increased towards the end of the Democratic Kampuchea period, more and more people were brought to Duch, including many former colleagues including his predecessor at Tuol Sleng, In Lon. Throughout this period, Duch built up a large archive of prison records, mug shots and extracted "confessions".

On 6 January 1979, he was ordered by his superior to kill the remaining prisoners.[17] The next day Duch was amongst the last Khmer Rouge cadres to flee Phnom Penh after it fell to the Vietnamese army. Though he was unable to destroy much of the prison's extensive documents, he saw to the execution of several surviving prisoners before he fled the city.

Trial[edit]

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Kang before the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Chambers_in_the_Courts_of_Cambodia]Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia on 20 July 2009. He was responding to the testimony given by his former subordinate Him Huy who was a Khmer Rouge prison guard.

On 31 July 2007, Duch was formally charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity and detained by Cambodia's United Nations-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Duch, represented by Cambodian lawyer Kar Savuth and French lawyer François Roux, appealed against his provisional detention by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia based on the more than eight years he spent without trial in Cambodian military detention. The appeal was unsuccessful and on 14 August 2008, the tribunal issued its indictment after completing their investigation of Duch.[20]

In February 2008, as part of the judicial process, Duch was taken to Tuol Sleng prison, the scene of his crimes. He reportedly collapsed in tears after stating, "I ask for your forgiveness – I know that you cannot forgive me, but I ask you to leave me the hope that you might."[21]
On 16 February 2009, the UN supervised trial of Duch began at a Phnom Penh court. Duch was prosecuted by international co-prosecutors William Smith and Anees Ahmed and was charged with "personally overseeing the systematic torture of more than 15,000 prisoners."[2] The presiding judge of the case was Nil Nonn. Duch was tried by a panel of five judges — three Cambodian, one French and one New Zealander — according to a 2003 pact between Cambodia and the United Nations establishing the tribunal.[20]

On 31 March 2009, Duch, in a statement in front of the Cambodia tribunal, accepted responsibility for torturing and executing thousands of inmates, expressed "heartfelt sorrow" for his crimes and vowed to cooperate fully with the tribunal.[22]

Duch surprised the tribunal on 27 November 2009 with a plea to be released. In his final statement before the tribunal he acknowledged his involvement in Khmer Rouge-era crimes, including the execution of more than 12,000 Tuol Sleng prisoners, but said they were committed by a "criminal party". Duch also noted that he had served more than 10 years in detention, and stressed that he had been fully cooperative with the tribunal. There were also conflicting closing arguments from Duch's defense team. His Cambodian lawyer, Kar Savuth demanded his client’s acquittal and release, while his international counterpart, François Roux pressed judges to hand down a lenient sentence.[23]

At the conclusion of the trial, prosecutors asked that Duch be given 40 years in prison if convicted.[24] On 26 July 2010, Duch was found guilty of crimes against humanity, torture, and murder; he was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment, with a pre-trial detention credit of 11 years being applied to his sentence and an additional controversial five-year deduction because his period of pre-trial detention exceeded the maximum allowed under Cambodian law.[25][26] On 3 February 2012, an upper court U.N. war crimes tribunal rejected his appeal and extended his sentence to life imprisonment[27] because of his "shocking and heinous" crimes. This ruling is final with no other chance for appeal. On 20 October 2018, he was hospitalized in serious condition.[28][29][30]