August 5th, 2009
Sopheng Cheang

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A former security guard at the Khmer Rouge’s most notorious prison told a tribunal Wednesday he watched as a Western prisoner was burned alive.

But the head of the prison — the first senior Khmer Rouge figure to face trial in the U.N.-assisted tribunal — denied it.

“It’s hard for me to believe that the prisoner was burned alive. I believe that nobody would dare to violate my order,” Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, told the court. “They had to be killed and then burned to ash.”

Up to 16,000 people were tortured under Duch’s command at S-21 prison and later were taken away to be killed during the Khmer Rouge’s 1975-1979 rule of Cambodia. Only a handful survived.

Cheam Soeu, now 52, told the court he was a youth when he joined the Khmer Rouge and helped the communist regime take power. He spent two years as a guard at S-21, where four Westerners were among the prisoners.