Khmer Rouge prison chief sentenced to 30 years

The former chief of the Khmer Rouge's main prison and torture facility, Kang Kek Ieu, 67, also known as Duch, was convicted Monday of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 35 years in prison, ending the first case before a U.N.-backed tribunal since the regime's fall 30 years ago. Judges reduced his 35-year sentence to 30 years, because he was unlawfully detained from 1999 to 2007. Prosecutors had sought a 40-year jail sentence for his role in the regime blamed for the deaths of least 1,7 million people in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, roughly a quarter of the population at the time. 

Four other former leaders of the regime are awaiting trials, expected to start later this year. The regime’s leaders lived freely in Cambodia for years until the government requested United Nations assistance in 1997 to start a tribunal.

Many Cambodians are too young to remember the Khmer Rouge, with a third of the country’s 14.2 million people under the age of 15, Bloomberg agency said.