Justice Delayed But Not Totally Denied

Cambodia continues to deal with the vicious and barbaric effects of the Khmer Rouge nearly 30 years after they were ousted from power. The Khmer Rouge turned the countryside red with blood - killing more than a million people before their ruinous rule was stopped by the Vietnamese.

Kang Kek Ieu, also known as Duch, was in charge of the notorious S21 jail in the country's capital, Phnom Penh.

Duch is the first of five suspects whom prosecutors have asked the tribunal to investigate over their role in the brutal Khmer Rouge regime.

More than a million people are thought to have died during the four years of Khmer Rouge rule between 1975-79.

Judges spent several hours interviewing Duch on Tuesday before formally filing charges against him.

"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," tribunal judges said in a statement.

Duch was not among the top level of Khmer Rouge leaders but he has become one of its most notorious members, according to the BBC's Guy De Launey in Phnom Penh.

He ran S21, a notorious jail where about 1,400 men, women and children were kept, and many of them brutally tortured.

Countries ravaged by despots, dictators, and genocidal thugs are still scarred by those periods in history, and one has to expect that we'll see similar issues elsewhere in the world - including Sudan and Iraq.

Part of the reason for the delay was because it took time for the UN to get its act together. Figures.