Ex-Khmer Rouge prison chief charged

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, July 31 (UPI) -- The man who ran a Khmer Rouge prison in Cambodia where many inmates were allegedly brutalized in the 1970s was charged Tuesday with crimes against humanity.

"The co-investigating judges of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia have charged Kang Kek Ieu, alias Duch, for crimes against humanity and have placed him in provisional detention," a United Nations-backed tribunal in Phnom Penh said in a statement.

Duch, one of five suspects expected to be investigated for atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge regime, the BBC reported. More than a million people were believed to have been killed during a four-year span, producing what has become to be called the Killing Fields of Cambodia.

Duch, who was questioned for several hours before being charged, ran the S21 prison, where more than 17,000 men, women and children are believed to have been held, many of them tortured, the British news network said.

Duch has been held in military custody the past eight years but other Khmer Rouge leaders have not been detained and may be more difficult to track down. However, the Khmer Rouge's top two leaders, founder Pol Pot and military commander Ta Mok, are dead.