Comrade Duch died on September 2nd
The supervisor of killings for Cambodia’s murderous Khmers Rouges was 77
AS THE VIETNAMESE army closed in on Phnom Penh in January 1979, Comrade Duch was ordered to kill the prisoners remaining in his charge. He just about had time to supervise that. (Killing was not usually done in his prison, only in the fields he had designated at Choeung Ek, seven kilometres away. Unless someone slipped up.) He also started to destroy his archive, but did not get far. The orders from Brother Number Two, Nuon Chea, had not specifically requested that. Besides, he did not greatly want to.
This article appeared in the Obituary section of the print edition under the headline “The mathematics of death”
Obituary September 12th 2020
From the September 12th 2020 edition
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