The Khmer Rouge's chief torturer and jailer asked to be freed today during his trial on the basis he was not a top leader.
The request for acquittal at the UN-backed war crimes tribunal was a shock development in the nine-month trial of the commander of the notorious S-21 prison, 67-year-old former maths teacher Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch.
Duch is accused of "crimes against humanity, enslavement, torture, sexual abuses and other inhumane acts" as commander of S-21 during one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century, when 1.7 million people died under the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 rule. Only seven of 14,000 people who passed through S-21 survived.
"I would like the court to release me," Duch said. The chamber of three Cambodian and two foreign judges asked Duch's Cambodian defence lawyer for clarification, questioning whether there was a mistake in the translation of Duch's statement from the Khmer language.
"When my client asked for release, he means because he was not the senior leader of the Khmer Rouge," said the lawyer, Kar Savuth, who repeated his assertion that Duch's life was at stake when he ordered the murders of thousands of people at S-21.
Prosecutors have urged the tribunal to reject the argument that Duch had little choice but to carry out orders, saying he was "ideologically of the same mind" as the Khmer Rouge leaders and did nothing to stop prison guards from inflicting torture. They have sought a 40-year prison sentence.
Witnesses in 72 days of hearings spoke of beatings with metal pipes, electrocution, near-starvation, rape and prisoners forced to eat their own excrement or being bled to death at the S-21 prison, a converted high school also known as Tuol Sleng.
"This accused person is a real criminal. He is behind the crimes committed at S-21. He was the secretary of the S-21 who oversaw all administrations, the management of the whole function of the centre," co-prosecutor Chea Leang told the court.
A verdict is expected by March. Duch faces up to life in prison. Cambodia does not have capital punishment.