Ex-Guerrilla Leader Charged in Deaths

Kaing Khek Iev, the former head of a Khmer Rouge torture center, has been charged with murder and with belonging to the banned guerrilla group, a military court judge said. Better known as Duch, he was charged Monday in the capital, Phnom Penh, by a court using testimony from another recently arrested Khmer Rouge guerrilla, army chief Ta Mok. Duch surfaced in northwestern Cambodia last month after 20 years in hiding. Now a born-again Christian, he admitted to journalists his role at Tuol Sleng prison, where he oversaw the torture of more than 14,000 men, women and children before executing them for allegedly opposing the Khmer Rouge’s 1975-79 rule.