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Rift in Khmer Rouge trial
Agence France Presse - November 30, 2009
A last-minute attempt for release by Khmer Rouge jail chief Duch has underscored deep rifts between foreign and Cambodian staff that threaten the UN-backed court, officials and diplomats said.
Duch's defence strategy imploded on the final day of his trial on Friday, when he suddenly demanded his release after months of admitting responsibility.
Duch, 67, a former mathematics teacher whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, is accused of overseeing the deaths of 15,000 people at a notorious torture centre. He is set to be sentenced by March next year.
His international and local lawyershad opposing arguments.
French counsel Francois Roux asked judges to consider Duch's remorse in an attempt to reduce a possible 40-year sentence. But his Cambodian colleague Kar Savuth said the court was not competent to hold the trial.
"There are, in Cambodia, a number of people who do not want this court," Mr Roux said, hinting that the strategy of his colleague, the lawyer of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, was motivated by political objectives.
The same criticism has been heard from prosecutors, judges and diplomats since the tribunal was created in 2006 as a final chance for justice for victims of the communist regime that killed up to two million people in the late 1970s.
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