By Dan Satherley
Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Comrade Duch, has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for overseeing more than 12,000 deaths during the Khmer Rouge reign over Cambodia in the 1970s.
Duch looked after the S-21 prison in capital Phnom Penh, where among 14,000 prisoners was New Zealand rower Rob Hamill's brother, Kerry Hamill, who was captured by the regime in 1978 while sailing.
While travelling from Singapore to Bangkok, his boat was blown off course into Cambodian waters.
Rob Hamill has been in Cambodia testifying at the trial, where he told Duch to his face that he'd imagined his "scrotum electrified, being forced to eat your own faeces, being nearly drowned, and having your throat cut".
Duch was charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture. The 67-year-old insisted he was only following orders, and that he did what he had to in order to survive. He was seeking an acquittal.
The Khmer Rouge are held responsible for almost 2 million deaths. After the regime's fall in 1979, Duch went into hiding in the north of the country, and converted to Christianity. He was discovered by a British journalist and arrested in 1999.
Duch has already served 11 years of his sentence, and had five more years removed for cooperating with the court.
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