AN international court is now in recess after conducting a precedent-shattering trial for 72 days spread over nine months. The defendant, who has asked to be acquitted and released, is accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture for heinous acts committed more than 30 years ago. It is likely, though, that he will be sentenced to at least 40 years and perhaps life in prison. This evil person should know by March what his fate will be.

Don’t feel sorry for this chap, who once presided over one of history’s most notorious death factories. He is Kaing Guek Eav, a 67-year-old Cambodian who was known in the four dark years of the Khmer Rouge tyranny (1975-79) as Comrade Duch (pronounced Dook). As head of the regime’s secret police, he was overseer of Tuol Sleng, a notorious torture centre converted from a high school in the capital, Phnom Penh. Of the 14,000 people who entered the prison, also known as S-21, only seven survived. Seven.

The trial, conducted by a panel of three Cambodian and two foreign judges, wound up its hearings a week ago and began the exacting task of going over the evidence adduced since hearings began in February. Four of them have to agree for a sentence to apply.

The court heard testimony and legal arguments in a building on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, not far from Cheung Eck, a former orchard which became known as the Killing Fields. Many of the estimated 1.7 million Cambodians slain in those blood-soaked years are buried there. A movie of the same name made several years ago gives only a glimpse of the multiple horrors that took place in the poor, benighted country.

During the trial Comrade Duch repeatedly accepted responsibility for all the victims of S-21 and time after time apologised for his role in the torture and murder at the prison. So his plea for acquittal and release as the trial wound up on Friday of last week caused some consternation.

He argued repeatedly that he never took part directly in the interrogations, torture and executions for which S-21 became infamous. And even while admitting responsibility for his crimes, he said he lived in fear of his superiors. But in the closing arguments, the prosecution demanded that the court hold Duch responsible for what it described as unrelenting brutality carried out under his orders. This included the chopping off of fingers and toes, the forcing of prisoners to eat their own excrement, and the murder of children.

Duch was arrested in 1999 while working as head of education in a district in the western part of the country. He assumed a different name but was not shy to give interviews to reporters under his Khmer Rouge identity and to acknowledge his role in that gang of mass murderers.

Duch is just the first of five senior members of the Khmer Rouge government facing war crimes and crimes against humanity. The others, who are well on in years and not in the best of health, are ex-president Khieu Samphan, former foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, Nuon Chea, who was known as “Brother Number Two” (after the regime’s chief, Pol Pot). Pol Pot died nine years ago and many watchers fear his surviving comrades will die of old age before they face trial.

The court — known as the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia — has yet to set trial dates for these old thugs and murderers.

The prosecutor opposed an attempt by her foreign counterparts associated with the tribunal to go after six other suspects. Citing the need for national reconciliation, Hun Sen issued a statement last March in which she warned that Cambodia could once again be engulfed in civil war if more Khmer Rouge officials were arrested. “I would prefer to see this tribunal fail instead of seeing war return to my country”, she told Reuters news agency.

Critics, however, see a political effort to stop the court from digging too deep. They suggest that such an enterprise could uncover secrets about some former Khmer Rouge figures serving in today’s government. Other critics want to find out what role the United States and China played in supporting Pol Pot’s regime. But the court says it can try only individuals and not countries or organisations, for crimes committed between April 17, 1975 and January 6, 1979.

An important criticism is why it has taken so long for the trial to take place. More than a decade ago, Cambodia asked the United Nations and the international community to help set up a tribunal, but the plan languished for years, with draft laws being batted back and forth. Finally, in 2005, the UN gave the go-ahead and the ECCC came into effect.

Significantly, the only Asian governments to donate to the ECCC are Japan (which is by far the largest international contributor), South Korea and Thailand. Several Western countries make up the rest of the almost US$150 million the court is expected to cost through next year.

It is interesting, too, to note how the trial has been received. Cambodians have been able to follow the proceedings through live television coverage as Comrade Duch, now a born-again Christian, admitted his responsibility and asked for forgiveness. Hardly a family in the small country has been untouched by the brutality that marked the Khmer Rouge period, and for many, reliving those experiences has been extremely painful. But many express the view that criminals must be brought to trial.

News agencies based in Japan and Singapore have carried regular reports about the trial, but even though China’s official agency, Xinhua, has a correspondent in Phnom Penh, it has ignored the proceedings.

Survivors hope that the trials can help close a terrible chapter in Cambodia’s history and usher in a new era of peace, justice and a level of tranquillity. It would be a bonus, too, if it will help educate a new generation about an era of which they know very little. They are also looking to the tribunals to introduce a robust dose of professionalism into the shaky legal system.

The tribunal has been plagued by many flaws, and the slow pace of bringing these monsters to trial has been extremely frustrating to many Cambodians. But the fact that it has happened at all is significant. This country is the only one in Asia – a region replete with tyrannies like North Korea, Myanmar and Mao’s China – to at least begin the process of trying to reckon with its grim, bloody past.

One can only wonder what the all-powerful generals and political chiefs presiding in Yangon and Pyongyang must think as they observe the proceedings at the ECCC. Will they one day have to sit in a dock somewhere and be forced to answer for their life-and-death decisions over the lives of people they deemed expendable?

keeble.mack@sympatico.ca