Between February and November 2009, an extraordinary trial took place in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, before a tribunal composed of national and foreign judges. The accused was Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his revolutionary name Duch. He was the former director of an infamous prison under the regime of Pol Pot between 1975 and 1979, during which about 1.7 million Cambodians died of starvation, exhaustion, disease, forced labor, and execution.
What made this trial extraordinary was that Duch was the first former high-ranking Khmer Rouge official to be tried and that he was the only one to admit guilt and cooperate with the court. Due to a legal procedure that did not allow plea bargaining, the trial was an exceptional opportunity to hear the voice of the perpetrator. And for anyone deeply intrigued about how mass murder operates and how a former math teacher concerned with social justice can turn...
