Duch in Phnom Penh

Van genocidale gevangenisdirecteur tot compassievol christen?

Samenvatting

Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, was the chief of the torture and interrogation prison S-21 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where during the rule of the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979) at least 12.272 people were killed. More than 30 years after the end of the Khmer Rouge rule he was tried before the ECCC (Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia). Duch united in him very versatile characteristics that are unusual for genocide perpetrators. His admission of responsibility for his deeds and his expressions of grief and sorrow in combination with him pleading for his immediate release is puzzling, but explicable nonetheless. With both admitting his legal responsibility and denying his actual responsibility he tried to avoid a long prison sentence. His expression of grief is explicable by both wanting to reduce his time in prison and his conversion to Christianity.