http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/international/ticker/detail/Sister_says_Khmer_Rouge_interrogator_was_gentle_man.html?siteSect=143&sid=8447790&cKey=1195637847000&ty=tiNovember 21, 2007 - 9:31 AM
Sister says Khmer Rouge interrogator was "gentle man"
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Chief Khmer Rouge interrogator Duch is a "gentle man" who was only following orders when he ran the notorious S-21 torture centre during Pol Pot's reign of terror 30 years ago, his sister said on Wednesday.
"My brother was a gentle man," Hong Kimhong, 50, told Reuters outside Cambodia's "Killing Fields" tribunal where Duch, charged with crimes against humanity, was seeking bail ahead of his trial expected next year. snip
A born-again Christian, Duch has confessed in interviews with Western reporters that he committed multiple atrocities as head of the infamous Tuol Sleng, or S-21, interrogation centre.
At least 14,000 people deemed to be opponents of Pol Pot's "Year Zero" revolution passed through Tuol Sleng's barbed-wire gates. Fewer than 10 are thought to have lived to tell the tale.
Most victims were tortured and forced to confess to a variety of crimes -- mainly being CIA spies -- before being bludgeoned to death in a field on the outskirts of the city. Women, children and even babies were among those butchered.