Former Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, also known as "Duch," is seen during the first day... 
(Mak Remissa, Pool/AP Photo)
Khmer Rouge executioners threw victims to their deaths, bludgeoned them and then slit their bellies, or had medics draw so much blood that their lives drained away, prosecutors alleged Monday at the opening trial of Cambodia's genocide tribunal.
The grisly accounts were part of the indictment read into the record for the regime's chief torturer and prison warden, Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch, the first suspect to face justice a full three decades after the Khmer Rouge 1975-79 reign of terror.
Disabled survivors of the regime joined earnest young law students and other spectators in a modern custom-built courtroom on the outskirts of the Phnom Penh to watch the long-delayed proceedings get under way.
Duch, now 66, commanded the group's main S-21 prison, also known as Tuol Sleng, where as many as 16,000 men women and children are believed to have been brutalized before being sent to their deaths.
"I have mixed feelings. I am angry because the Khmer Rouge killed my wife," said 68-year-old Bou Meng, one of a handful of S-21 survivors. "I am happy because the Khmer Rouge leader was brought here today to be prosecuted.'
"I hope that the court will give me justice, and that justice will come soon," he said.
The tribunal alleges that Duch oversaw such atrocities as execution by bloodletting, and the hurling of children down three stories to their deaths. He is charged with committing crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as torture and homicide, and could face a maximum penalty of life in prison. Cambodia has no death penalty.
The U.N.-assisted tribunal is seeking to establish responsibility for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians from starvation, medical neglect, slave-like working conditions and execution under the Khmer Rouge, whose top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.
Duch's job was to extract confessions of counterrevolutionary activity, but "Every prisoner who arrived at S-21 was destined for execution," said the indictment against him.
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