Khmer Rouge torturer describes killing babies by 'smashing them into trees'



Kaing Guek Eav admitted being responsible for killing babies, young children and teenagers at the Khmer Rouge's S-21 prison



Khmer Rouge jailers killed the babies of the regime's victims by battering them against trees to stop them growing up and taking revenge for their parents' deaths.

The admission that this was the official policy of the Cambodian regime of the 1970s came yesterday from Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, a former prison commander.

Duch, 66, was in charge of S-21 prison in the capital Phnom Penh where as many as 16,000 Cambodians were tortured and killed. He said: 'I am criminally responsible for killing babies, young children and teenagers.

He referred to photographs he was shown by the tribunal of a technique executioners used to kill child victims by bashing their heads against tree trunks.



'The horrendous images of the babies being smashed against the trees, I didn't recognise it at first. But after seeing the photographs I recalled that it had happened,' Duch said.



'It was done by my subordinates. I do not blame them because this was under my responsibility.'



Duch was shown the pictures in February 2008 when he was taken on a pretrial tour of S-21 and one of the country's notorious 'killing fields' as part of an investigative process that involved taking the accused to the crime scene.



Duch recounted a Khmer Rouge policy on detained children: 'There is no gain to keep them, and they might take revenge on you,' which he said was told to him by the regime's former defence minister, Son Sen.

Duch is being tried at a genocide tribunal. An estimated 1.7million Cambodians died under Pol Pot's 1975-79 communist regime.

It is not known how many young children were killed at S-21, since photographs were not routinely taken of babies and young prisoners. Photographers kept meticulous records of adult prisoners, which now line the walls of S-21, which was converted into a genocide museum.



Duch denied one of the grisly allegations in the prosecutor's indictment, that children of S-21 prisoners were taken from their parents and dropped from third floor windows to break their necks.



Duch told the tribunal that hurling children from windows would have panicked other prisoners, which would have run contrary to his orders. He said that prisoners were supposed to be kept in the dark of their destiny to be killed.



Duch is the first senior Khmer Rouge figure to face trial, and the only one to acknowledge responsibility for his actions. Senior leaders Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary and Ieng Sary's wife, Ieng Thirith, are all detained and likely to face trial in the next year or two.