CHIEF TORTURER EXPRESSES 'EXCRUCIATING REMORSE'

40-YEAR SENTENCE DEMANDED FOR 'COMRADE DUCH'
THE KHMER ROUGE'S CHIEF TORTURER AND JAILER

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (Reuters) - The Khmer Rouge's chief torturer and jailer has expressed "excruciating remorse" for more than 14,000 people killed under his watch. Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, was in charge at a notorious prison during Cambodia's ultra-Maoist revolution of the 1970s. Kaing Guek Eav, was head of the S-21 prison where almost 16,000 people were tortured to death during the Khmer Rouge's brutal rule. Addressing the court , Duch said that he wanted to share the sorrow of the Cambodian people.

The 67-year-old former math teacher is accused of "crimes against humanity, enslavement, torture, sexual abuses and other inhumane acts" as commander of S-21 jail. Under Duch's direction, 1,7000 men, women and children who had been accused of disloyalty were taken to Tuol Sleng – known as S-21 – to be interrogated until they implicated friends, relatives and even people they had never met in fantastical "plots" against the regime. Then they were killed. There was no reprieve; of the thousands who passed through the gates of S-21 between 1977 and 1979, only 15 emerged alive. Duch encouraged the jail's interrogation teams to apply ever harsher torture techniques to their victims, including cutting off their fingers and toes, bludgeoned to death by beatings with metal pipes, electrocution, near-starvation, violent rape and forcing some prisoners to eat their own excrement. In a final appeal to his war crimes tribunal, Duch has apologised for his role in the torture and murder of thousands of Cambodians, he denies personally murdering or torturing prisoners and insists he was following orders out of fear for his own life. He admits being liable for the killings but insists he was serving a mafia-type group "I could not withdraw from", and now he "express my most excruciating remorse", Duch told the court.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

The soul may soar so high as to become a divine being fully conscious of his own true nature as an eternal servant of the Supreme Lord in the spiritual kingdom, or it may descend so low as to appear no better than sticks and stones. The destiny of each individual soul is thus made or marred by himself. As spiritual beings, all individual souls possess the faculty of free will divinely bestowed upon them. They can abuse this gift of God or they can make the best use of it. The Supreme Lord does not interfere with His gift, viz., the soul’s freedom of choice.

Śrīla Bhakti Saranga Maharaj
"Gaudiya Vaishnava Theologhy"
Bhaktivedanta Memorial Library - www.bvml.org/SBSGM/