Khmer Rouge prison chief faces tribunal

Cambodia’s UN-backed genocide tribunal opened its doors today for the first public court appearance of a Khmer Rouge figure since the regime’s brutal reign of terror in the 1970s.

Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, who headed the regime’s notorious S-21 prison and torture centre, entered the long-delayed tribunal for a pretrial hearing to appeal his detention ahead of trials scheduled to begin in 2008.