Kaing Guek Eav has been found Gulity of Crimes against Humanity and sentenced to only 35 years in prison.
"Under his authority, countless abuses were committed, including mass murder, arbitrary detention and rape, torture," said a judge, reading Duch's indictment to the court. He listed methods of torture that included beating, stabbing, suspension from ropes, removal of fingernails and submersion in pits filled with water.
Duch was the first major Khmer Rouge figure held in custody. He has been in a military jail in Phnom Penh since 1999 when a British photographer discovered him in rural Cambodia. He was working for a government agency and had become a born-again Christian.
From 1975 to 1979, in a fanatical attempt to create a pure peasant society, the Khmer Rouge turned their country into a giant labor camp, evacuating cities, banning commerce and religion, and trying to exterminate the country's educated class. At least 1.7 million people were executed or died of overwork, starvation, torture or untreated disease. Remaining victims would like to have seen him get 1 year for every life he took, which would mount to 12,000 years.
