Just following orders

He was just following orders?

Chief Khmer Rouge interrogator Duch is a "gentle man" who was only following orders when he ran the notorious S-21 torture centre during Pol Pot's reign of terror 30 years ago, his sister said on Wednesday.

"My brother was a gentle man," Hong Kimhong, 50, told Reuters outside Cambodia's "Killing Fields" tribunal where Duch, charged with crimes against humanity, is seeking bail ahead of his trial expected next year.

"He bears at least some direct responsibility for the detention, torture and deaths of over 14,000 men, women and children," co-prosecutor Robert Petit told the five Cambodian and international judges.

"A lot of Cambodians are watching and listening to what is being said and done in this chamber. Most of them have been waiting for 30 years to see justice done," Petit said.

A born-again Christian, Duch has confessed in interviews with Western reporters that he committed multiple atrocities as head of the infamous Tuol Sleng, or S-21, interrogation centre.

At least 14,000 people deemed to be opponents of Pol Pot's "Year Zero" revolution passed through Tuol Sleng's barbed-wire gates. Fewer than 10 are thought to have lived to tell the tale.

Most victims were tortured and forced to confess to a variety of crimes -- mainly being CIA spies -- before being bludgeoned to death in a field on the outskirts of the city. Women, children and even babies were among those butchered.

But Duch's sister did not believe "he was as brutal as the allegations say" and she said their family had also suffered under the Khmer Rouge.

"Ten of our family died of starvation under the regime. If he isn't released I don't think it will be a fair trial," she said. (Source)

Since when is that an excuse?