Convicted Khmer Rouge prison chief out of hospital

Still going strong: Duch (centre)looking on in the courtroom before his first appeal on the outskirts of Phnom Penh in this 2011 file photo. — Reuters

Phnom Penh: The former chief interrogator and torturer for Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge has been discharged from hospital after a health scare that lasted weeks, an official said.

Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, is serving a life sentence for managing the Phnom Penh detention centre S-21 where some 15,000 people were confined and sent to their deaths in nearby “Killing Fields” in the late 1970s.