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Landmark Khmer Rouge trial starts

Other News Materials 17 February 2009 11:22 (UTC +04:00)

The long-awaited UN-backed trial of a former Khmer Rouge leader in Cambodia has opened at a Phnom Penh court, 30 years after the murderous regime fell,

BBC

reported.

Kaing Guek Eav - better known as Duch - was head of a notorious prison camp and is accused of presiding over the murder and torture of at least 15,000 inmates.

The trial is the result of a decade of painstaking and often ill-tempered negotiations, a BBC correspondent says.

People queued for hours to attend the hearing and see the ex-prison chief.

For the survivors, the opening day of the trial offered the first opportunity to see a leading figure in the Khmer Rouge face justice.

These first days are mainly procedural, with witness testimony expected to be heard only during next month's hearings, the BBC's South East Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head, says.

Duch was driven by bulletproof car from a detention centre to the specially-built court-room.

He is one of five former Khmer Rouge leaders who will face trial and is unusual in that he has expressed regret for what he did, and asked the forgiveness of his victims.

Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath called it "a very big day for the Cambodian people because the justice that they have been waiting for 30 years is starting to get closer and closer".

"I came here to see the trial with my own eyes, so I could tell villagers who could not be here," Mahd Musa, 54, who lost seven family members during the Khmer Rouge period, told Reuters news agency.

"It is a very important day for me. I cannot miss it."

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