Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity but was sentenced last month to serve just 19 years in prison.

A statement by the prosecutors said the judgment “gives insufficient weight to the gravity of Duch’s crimes and his role and his willing participation in those crimes.”

Separately, the prosecutors said they were seeking to lodge conspiracy charges against four senior former Khmer Rouge leaders who are in custody but have yet to be tried.

The tribunal is seeking justice for the estimated 1.7 million people who died from execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition as a result of the radical policies of the 1975-79 communist Khmer Rouge regime.

Duch (pronounced DOIK) was the first defendant to be tried. He supervised a prison where as many as 16,000 people were tortured before being executed.

Also found guilty of torture and murder, Duch was originally sentenced to 35 years. Time served reduced the sentence 11 years, and he was compensated five years for illegal detention in a military prison. The length of the sentence was widely criticized.

Prosecutors argued that mitigating circumstances were given undue weight and added their view was that “Duch should be separately convicted of the crimes against humanity of enslavement, imprisonment, torture, rape, extermination, and other inhumane acts.”

The appeal was filed Monday, and the prosecutors’ statement said substantive arguments supporting it would be filed within the required 60 days.

Four more defendants are expected to go on trial early next year: Nuon Chea, the Khmer Rouge ideologist; Khieu Samphan, its former head of state; Ieng Sary, its foreign minister; and his wife Ieng Thirith, who was minister for social affairs.

In a separate announcement, the prosecutors announced that they had made their final submission to the court on Monday of the case against the four, which in addition to the charges for which Duch was tried, includes “joint criminal enterprise.”

The doctrine of joint criminal enterprise makes defendants responsible for the actions of co-defendants on the basis of conspiracy. Such a charge could allow a conviction in cases where a defendant might not be directly linked to commission of a crime under the other charges.

The announcement said the accused conspired “to enforce a political revolution in Cambodia and systematically destroy any opposition,” and that through the conspiracy they “enslaved the Cambodian population, deprived them of their fundamental human rights and freedoms and orchestrated mass killings of individuals” whom they regarded as enemies.

The tribunal’s co-investigating judges will evaluate which charges to proceed with. The prosecutors said their submission includes a 931-page summary of the facts supporting their allegations, and that the charges are supported by more than 2,800 documents of evidence, including statements from witnesses. — AP

Deadly clashes have flared in the past over the Preah Vihear temple, which the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization named a World Heritage site in 2008, over Thailand’s objections.

Two Thai soldiers were killed and 12 wounded in April 2009 after troops exchanged fire with assault rifles and rocket launchers along Cambodia’s northern border near the temple, one of several clashes in recent years.

Cambodia will present a management plan in Brazil on the disputed territory at a UNESCO meeting this week.

The International Court of Justice in 1962 ruled the 10th-century border temple belongs to Cambodia, rejecting Thai claims. Cambodia’s World Heritage bid reignited Thai resentment over the ruling, and there have been small armed clashes in the area during the past few years.

Thailand claims the management plan would infringe on a small area of undemarcated territory around the temple, of which both sides stake a claim. It has called on UNESCO to reject the plan, and said it will walk out of the meeting if it is accepted. It also said it would consider withdrawing from UNESCO’s membership if Cambodia’s plan is accepted.

Leaders of both countries have used the issue to stir up nationalist sentiment and shore up domestic political support.

Abhisit met Wednesday with Defense Minister Pravit Wongsuwan, who told him that, pending Cabinet approval, the army is ready to deploy more troops to the already heavily defended border if Cambodian forces intrude into Thai territory.

“The army is now ready to defend our sovereignty if breached,” said Abhisit after his weekly Cabinet meeting. He said he was appealing to members of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee “to remember the very purpose this committee was set up for. It should be a purveyor of peace and culture, not of tension and conflicts.”

A Thai delegation, led by Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Suwit Khunkitti, is in Brasilia to attend the UNESCO meeting.

“We must make it clear that Thailand cannot and will not accept the proposal,” said Abhisit. “And if the committee will not listen to our objection, we will not take part in the voting process.” — AP

Kaing Guek Eav — also known as Duch — was convicted Monday of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was the first major Khmer Rouge figure to face trial more than three decades after the regime’s brutal rule led to the deaths of 1.7 million people.

He will only have to serve 19 years of his sentence after taking into account time already served and other factors.

Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said that Duch’s lawyer, Kar Savuth, has notified the tribunal of his intent to appeal.

“Kar Savuth told me several hours after the verdict was issued that he would appeal,” the spokesman said. “He said he would have appealed a sentence of even one day.”

Duch oversaw the notorious Tuol Sleng prison and torture center — code-named S-21. He admitted his guilt during testimony but argued that he was only following orders and acted out of desperation to save his and his family’s lives and should not he held responsible.

Survivors of the “killing fields” of 1975-79 expressed anger and disbelief at what they saw as too lenient a sentence for a key player in the regime that wiped out a quarter of Cambodia’s population.

Four other senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge are detained and waiting to face trials, expected to start later this year. — AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – A U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal was expected to issue a decision Monday in the trial of the Khmer Rouge’s chief jailer and torturer — the first verdict involving a leader of the genocidal regime that created Cambodia’s killing fields.

Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, ran Toul Sleng — the secret detention center reserved for “enemies” of the state. He admitted overseeing the deaths of up to 16,000 men, women and children who passed through its gates and asked for forgiveness during his 77-day trial.

Though widely expected to be found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, many in this still-traumatized nation are anxiously awaiting the sentence. Anything short of the maximum life behind bars could trigger public outrage.

“All I want before I die is to see justice served,” said Bou Meng, 69, one of the few people sent to Toul Sleng who survived. “He admitted everything,” he said. “If he gets anything less than life, it will only add to my suffering.”

The U.N.-assisted tribunal represents the first serious attempt to hold Khmer Rouge leaders accountable for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians from starvation, medical neglect, slave-like working conditions and execution. The group’s top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.

Duch (pronounced DOIK) is the first of five surviving senior figures of the regime to go on trial. Unlike the four other defendants, Duch was not among the ruling clique. He insisted during the trial that he was only following orders from the top, and on the final day he asked to be acquitted and freed — angering many of the victims.

A former math teacher, Duch joined Pol Pot’s movement in 1967. Ten years later, he was the trusted head of its ultimate killing machine, S-21, which became the code name for Toul Sleng.

Only 14 prisoners are thought to have survived ordeals at the prison that included medieval-like tortures to extract “confessions” from supposed enemies of the regime, followed by executions and burials in mass graves outside Phnom Penh. The gruesome litany of torture included pulling out prisoners’ toenails, administering electric shocks, waterboarding — a form of simulated drowning — and medical experiments that ended in death.

Duch, who kept meticulous records, was often present during interrogations and signed off on all the executions. In one memo, a guard asked him what to do with six boys and three girls accused of being traitors.

“Kill every last one,” he wrote across the top.

After the Khmer Rouge were forced from power in 1979 after a bloody, four-year reign, Duch disappeared for almost two decades, living under various aliases in northwestern Cambodia, where he had converted to Christianity. His chance discovery by a British journalist led to his arrest in May 1999.

“This is a crime that, after 30 years, is now officially being recognized by a court of law, and that is what is most wanted by survivors,” said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which has collected evidence of the atrocities.

Though the tribunal has been credited with helping Cambodians speak out publicly for the first time about Khmer Rouge atrocities, it has faced criticism.

In an awkward legal compromise, the government insisted Cambodians be included on the panel of judges, raising concerns about political interference. Possibly fearing a widening circle of defendants could reach into its own ranks, the government sought to limit the number of those being tried.

The costs have also exceeded expectations.

Initially, the $78 million earmarked for the proceedings was used up in 2009, without issuing a single ruling, drawing criticism that the process was moving too slowly. The international community has agreed to pump in an addition $92 million for the next two years.

Norng Chan Phal doesn’t care about the cost — as long as Duch spends the rest of his life behind bars.

“This is the most important day of my life,” said the Khmer Rouge survivor, who was just 8 when his father and mother were taken to Toul Sleng and killed. He will be among hundreds of victims at the court Monday for the verdict.

“I’ve been living without my parents for 30 years. I want to see him get what he deserves.” — AP

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Online:

http://www.eccc.gov.kh

(This version CORRECTS spelling of name of survivor Bou Meng.)

The Khmer Rouge’s chief torturer and jailer, 67-year-old Kaing Guek Eav, is charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity for overseeing the deaths of 14,000 people as commander of Phnom Penh’s notorious Tuol Sleng prison.

Better known as “Duch,” he is widely expected to receive the maximum sentence on Monday of life imprisonment by a joint U.N.-Cambodian court set up to prosecute the ultra-Maoist regime blamed for 1.7 million deaths that wiped out almost a quarter of Cambodia’s population from 1975 to 1979.

Any lesser sentence, analysts say, could trigger public outrage and further dent the credibility of a snail-paced and financially draining tribunal that has already been tainted by allegations of corruption and political interference.

“Cambodians will lose confidence in this court if Duch doesn’t get the maximum sentence,” said Pou Sothirak, a former Cambodian diplomat who is now a senior research fellow at Singapore’s Institute of South East Asian Studies.

“This is a hugely important and historic day for Cambodia. If people don’t believe justice has been served, they can’t move toward any healing or closure,” he said.

Chum Mey, one of only a few survivors of Duch’s S-21 torture center and a key witness in the trial, said a lighter sentence would only prolong painful memories in a country where most families suffered losses at the hands of the regime.

“If he is not sentenced to life, there won’t be any justice,” Chum Mey, 79, told Reuters. “We have been waiting for more than 30 years. It’s a really long time.”

PEASANT UTOPIA

Duch, a former maths teacher and now a born-again Christian, insists he was following orders to avoid death at the behest of the late Pol Pot, a French-educated engineer who led the regime and sought to return Cambodia to a year-zero peasant utopia.

Duch asked for forgiveness and wept during his 17-month trial but said nothing of the Khmer Rouge’s motives and why so many people were allowed to die of starvation, exhaustion and disease, or by horrific methods of torture and execution.

“I’m still angry, my relatives are all gone,” said villager Som Rorn, who lost 12 family members to the Khmer Rouge, eight by execution and four by starvation.

Duch is the first of five of Pol Pot’s former cadres indicted by the court. Facing genocide charges are former President Khieu Samphan, “Brother Number Two” Nuon Chea, ex-Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, a former Shakespeare scholar known as the “Khmer Rouge First Lady.”

Regardless of Monday’s verdict, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) will probably face more criticism for its bureaucracy, big spending and lack of progress.

Since its establishment in 2005, the ECCC has spent $78.4 million of foreign donations without making a ruling and was last year granted a further $92.3 million for 2010-2011.

Many Cambodians fear that the ailing defendants could die before they see a courtroom and say the cases are so complex and politicized they may not even go to trial, which has fed allegations of high-level interference.

Mark Turner, an expert on Cambodia from the University of Canberra, said the composition and purpose of the tribunal was often in question and the government, which includes some former Khmer Rogue members, was in no hurry to speed up the hearings.

“One would suspect some people in government aren’t too anxious to rake up the past,” he said. “They might also be implicated. That’s why this court has never been their priority.” — Reuters

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – The brother of one of a handful of Westerners killed by the Khmer Rouge returned to Cambodia for a landmark verdict in a war crimes tribunal, saying there can never be adequate justice for his family.

It was not clear how Rob Hamill’s brother, Kerry, fell into the hands of the brutal communist regime. Kerry Hamill was 28 when his yacht was blown off course into Cambodian waters in 1978 and he was captured. He and shipmates Briton John Dewhirst and Canadian Stuart Glass were taken to Phnom Penh’s S-21 prison, tortured and killed.

When the news reached his hometown of Hamilton, New Zealand more than one year later, it tore apart what had been a close-knit family. One brother committed suicide months later; Rob Hamill became a teenage drunk. His parents never recovered.

“There’ll never be justice for our family,” said Hamill, 46, noting his mother died seven years ago and did not get to witness the trial or hear its verdict. “I can’t quite reconcile how justice can ever be served with the nature and the way these people’s lives were taken.”

A U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal will issue its first verdict Monday against a senior member of the Khmer Rouge, the ultra-communist regime blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians during their 1975-79 rule.

About a dozen Westerners were among the estimated 16,000 people held at S-21 before being killed.

As commander of S-21, Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Those who passed through the gates of his secret prison were deemed the worst enemies of the paranoid Pol Pot regime; spies, saboteurs, traitors — and foreigners. Many were tortured. Interrogators pulled out toenails, drained blood and electrocuted prisoners to extract confessions.

In 1979 after the Vietnamese overthrew the Khmer Rouge, Kerry Hamill’s so-called confession of espionage was among the meticulous records discovered at S-21.

Rob Hamill, a rower who represented New Zealand at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, said his family learned of his brother’s death 16 months after he disappeared. Their parents read in a newspaper he was executed after two months at S-21.

Last year Rob Hamill spoke at Duch’s trial, the only Westerner to do so as a victim, and tried to convey his family’s suffering.

He says confronting Duch in court has helped him deal with the grief that has haunted his life, but forgiveness for his brother’s killer still eludes him.

“I wanted to forgive Duch so that it would allow me to move on — until I went to S-21 and I got to see what this guy created,” he said. “Any compassion I had for him at that time went out the window.

“Since then, time has a funny way of warping things,” he said. “I’ve got an internal battle going on and maybe this sentencing will somehow further that process.”

On his first visit Hamill says he was an emotional wreck. This time he said he feels more in control, more at peace and believes his brother Kerry would approve of the way the family is finally moving on.

“I think he’d be very proud of what we’re trying to do as a family to represent him after 30 years of our own family suppressing it and not talking about what happened and the effect it had on us all as a family,” he said.

“I think this is a very special time and I’d like to think he’s looking down and saying ‘well it’s about bloody time.’”

Rob Hamill has requested a face-to-face meeting with Duch after the verdict to try to find out more about Kerry’s fate. So far he’s had no answer. — AP

Lars Olsen, spokesman for the U.N.-backed tribunal, said the court will hand down the verdict against Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, on July 26.

Duch, 67, commanded the notorious S-21 prison where as many as 16,000 people were tortured before being sent for execution in the late 1970s. He is the first senior Khmer Rouge figure to face trial, and the only one to acknowledge responsibility for his actions. He was tried last year.

The tribunal is seeking justice for an estimated 1.7 million people who died from execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition under the 1975-79 communist Khmer Rouge regime.

“We hope that the verdict will mark an important milestone for the Cambodian people who are waiting for more than 30 years to see someone being brought to justice,” Olsen said.

Four other Khmer Rouge leaders are facing charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. They are the group’s top ideologist, Nuon Chea; former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary; his wife, former Social Affairs Minister Ieng Thirith; and former head of state Khieu Samphan.

Their trial is expected to begin late this year or early next year. — AP

The foreign ministry letter sent to all diplomatic missions in Cambodia asked them to “avoid interfering in the internal affairs” of the country, regardless of the power of their home nations.

“There have been many occasions, in which some heads of diplomatic missions behaved like a ‘proconsul’ of his/her country to the Kingdom of Cambodia. They indulged themselves to criticise or to give lessons to the Royal Government of Cambodia,” the letter said.

“Such behaviours are not acceptable for Cambodia as a sovereign country and a member of the United Nations. Cambodia is not a BANANA REPUBLIC,” it added.

Asked about the letter dated April 26, foreign ministry spokesman Koy Kuong told AFP it was issued to remind all diplomats not to “exceed the limit of their mandate”.

Cambodia last month threatened to expel a United Nations envoy if UN agencies continued “unacceptable interference” in the country.

The move came after UN agencies in Cambodia urged “a transparent and participatory” process as parliament debated an anti-corruption law that was criticised by the opposition and rights groups.

Ranked one of the world’s most corrupt countries, Cambodia passed the anti-graft law in parliament on March 11, more than 15 years after legislation was first proposed, but only days after the draft was shared publicly. — AFP

KANDOUL, Cambodia – The bodies were dumped in a shallow grave amid the untilled earth of rice paddies: five journalists who had been ambushed by Khmer Rouge and Viet Cong guerrillas on May 31, 1970.

Om Pao, then 12, remembers the stench of decay for days after. He helped his father heap more earth on top of the remains to keep the smell down, the pigs out and the bodies from floating away.

In all, nine journalists — American, Indian, Japanese, French and Cambodian — were attacked that day near this dusty village south of the capital, Phnom Penh. All are believed to have been killed. It was one of the deadliest incidents for reporters in the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia, in a year that remains one of the deadliest anywhere for journalists.

This week, 40 years later, two dozen aging colleagues trekked to Kandoul to mourn and remember. They honored the dozens of reporters, photographers and cameramen who died covering the five-year war, which ended in 1975 with the takeover by the brutal Khmer Rouge.

“It’s not only sadness for our colleagues, but also for our Cambodian friends,” said Elizabeth Becker, who covered the war for The Washington Post, “but the biggest sadness is that it’s taken so long for this country to recover.”

Impoverished Cambodia, already roiled by the fighting in neighboring Vietnam, plunged into open war in March 1970 when Gen. Lon Nol overthrew Prince Norodom Sihanouk and seized power in a CIA-backed coup.

Two months later, as Lon Nol’s forces battled Khmer Rouge insurgents and their Vietnamese allies, a six-man crew from CBS News was ambushed on the morning of May 31 as the team drove south of Phnom Penh. Three men from NBC News, rushing after their competitors, were also captured.

According to former CBS cameraman Kurt Volkert, who compiled a detailed reconstruction based on witness accounts, four of the CBS employees were killed instantly. The five others are believed to have been taken to Kandoul in the days after and executed. They had their hands bound and possibly were clubbed to death.

In 1992, Volkert helped a U.S. military forensics team locate the grave just outside Kandoul. Four bodies were recovered and identified as the three NBC employees and one from CBS. The fifth body was never found.

In all, more than three dozen foreign and Cambodian journalists were killed or listed as missing during the 1970-75 war. As many as 26 were killed in the war’s first year, according to tallies compiled by former Associated Press correspondents.

Earlier this year, amateur searchers digging northeast of Phnom Penh unearthed what they believe to be the remains of war photographer Sean Flynn — son of Hollywood star Errol Flynn. Sean Flynn went missing nearly two months before the U.S. television crews were ambushed.

After the Khmer Rouge took over in April 1975, dozens of other Cambodian journalists — mainly freelancers for foreign media — were executed or simply disappeared.

On Thursday, reporters, photographers and cameramen who covered Cambodia’s upheaval joined throngs of curious villagers, huddling from the scorching heat under an orange and yellow tent in the middle of a rice paddy.

The smell of burning incense and the chants of Buddhist monks mixed with the sound of passing ox carts. Several visitors wept as the names of the dead reporters were read aloud. Children, naked and barefoot, begged for handouts, sipped coconut juice being sold by a vendor and splashed in the nearby puddle where the four bodies had been exhumed in 1992.

“We remember those who have died seeking both truth and reality in Cambodia,” said Chhang Song, the minister of information in the Lon Nol government who worked closely with many of the reporters and helped organize the reunion.

Om Pao, whose father’s paddy was just yards away from the grave in 1970, said: “To hold a Buddhist ceremony like today is good for dead people, to show the gratitude to the dead and to offer their souls a chance to rest in peace.”

Former AP correspondent Carl Robinson said covering Cambodia’s turmoil was much more dangerous than Vietnam. Journalists were more often on their own, without the protection of the U.S. military. And, he added, he was troubled by the U.S. role in Cambodia.

“It was nightmarish to cover it all,” he said. “It’s too hard to look back upon. The whole thing had been a disaster. I left feeling guilty and bitter, as a reporter, as an American, it was just shameful and the Cambodians suffered.”

For Jeff Williams, a former correspondent for AP and CBS, the trip was a chance to remember the collegiality of the foreign press corps at the time.

“I don’t believe in closure. Maybe it’s just me, but nothing ever closes,” he said. “You just move ahead.” — AP

Cambodia in December deported the 20 Uighurs, members of a largely Muslim minority group in western China, even though they were seeking UN refugee status and said they would face torture if returned.

The United States, which had warned against the deportation, said it was calling off a shipment of 200 trucks and trailers under a program by which the United States provides surplus military supplies to other countries.

“They failed to heed not only our call that they step up to their international obligations but specific obligations they have as a country,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.

“We said there would be consequences, and this is a step in that direction,” he said.

“This is something that I think is important to Cambodia,” he said of the trucks.

But the assistance pales in comparison to aid from Beijing.

China, which had put heavy pressure on Cambodia to hand over the Uighurs, signed off on one billion dollars in assistance days after the deportation, although Beijing denied there was a link.

Exiled Uighur activists praised the US decision.

“I thank the United States for its continued attention to the situation of the Uighurs who sought asylum in Cambodia,” said Omer Kanat, vice president of the World Uighur Congress.

“I urge the US and the international community to press China regarding their current whereabouts and legal situation, since Chinese authorities have refused to give any information about this since the Uighurs were deported,” he said.

The State Department in its last annual human rights report said that China was stepping up cultural and political repression against Uighurs in the western region of Xinjiang.

Clashes between Xinjiang’s Uighurs and China’s majority Han ethnic group in July left nearly 200 dead and 1,600 injured, according to official tolls. — AFP