Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal yesterday officially set February 17 as the start date for the long-awaited first trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders accused of atrocities in the 1970s.

Court documents said the hearing, for former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, will be for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Convention as well as premeditated murder and torture.

Duch, 66, will be the first leader of Cambodia's brutal 1975-1979 communist regime to stand trial at the UN-backed tribunal, an initial step towards justice for the up to two million people who died under their rule.

He will be tried for "his acts or omissions in Phnom Penh and within the territory of Cambodia, between 17 April 1975 and 6 January 1979," said the court documents, released to the media on Monday.

Duch was indicted last year for allegedly overseeing the torture and extermination of more than 12,000 men, women and children when he headed Phnom Penh's notorious Tuol Sleng prison, known as S-21.