Khmer Rouge Torture Chief Apologizes During Tribunal

RAY SUAREZ:

Sixty-six-year-old Kaing Guek Eav stood in a Phnom Penh courtroom today and said the words many Cambodians have waited to here for 30 years.

KAING GUEK EAV, Khmer Rouge official (through translator): May I be permitted to apologize to the survivors of the regime and also to the families of the victims whose loved ones died so brutally at S-21? I would like those people to please know — and I would like to apologize and consider my intention that I have not asked you to forgive me now, but I will attempt to do so later.

RAY SUAREZ:

S-21 was the prison Kaing ran during the Khmer Rouge, which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Sixteen thousand people are alleged to have been tortured or executed at S-21; that number was but a tragic fraction of the regime's final toll.

Kaing, known by his noms de guerre, Duch, is the first to answer for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. He's the least senior of five regime officials who will appear before a U.N.-backed genocide tribunal.

The court's main purpose is to determine the facts of the Khmer Rouge's reign. It may issue verdicts and sentences. None of the defendants will be executed; Cambodia now has no death penalty.

That's a far cry from the Khmer Rouge era. Under its leader, Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge regime killed 1.7 million people, one-fifth of the entire Cambodian population, in pursuit of a brutally idealized communist state.

The regime was deposed by the neighboring Vietnamese in 1979. Pol Pot died in 1998 and never had to answer for his crimes.

Duch was the regime's most notorious jailer and torturer. Yesterday, the first day of the trial, a court official detailed the purpose of the prison he operated.

COURT OFFICIAL (through translator):

The primary role of S-21 was to implement the party political line regarding the enemy according to which prisoners absolutely had to be smashed. The term "smashed" was used and widely understand to mean "killed." Every prisoner who arrived at S-21 was destined for execution.

RAY SUAREZ:

If those prisoners were not killed at S-21, they were often sent to sites known as the killing fields. Robert Petit, of the prosecutors, told what happened there.

ROBERT PETIT, Prosecutor:

The victims were brought to pits dug beforehand. There, they were killed by a blow to the base of the neck using steel clubs. The bodies would be kicked into the holes, their handcuffs taken off their lifeless hands, their bellies sliced open, and the pits covered by dirt.

RAY SUAREZ:

Duch, who was found posing as an aid worker and detained 10 years ago, is the only one of the five defendants to acknowledge his role in the genocide. His trial is expected to last four months.