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What makes a person kill?

It is a question that never ceases to enthral and fascinate and will once again be asked as prosecutors, who are investigating the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge, delve into the mind of Kaing Guek Eav,  who is better known by his nom de guerre Duch.

Duch was at the heart of the killing machine of the Khmer Rouge - the ultra-Maoist regime that ruled Cambodia with a brutal hand from 1975-1979  and under  whom 1.7 million Cambodians died.

Back then, Cambodia had a population of seven million, and the loss of almost one quarter of its people through overwork, starvation, illness or execution, as the Khmer Rouge pursued its crazed ideology, stunned the world.

Now Cambodians want answers from Duch, who was earlier this week charged with crimes against humanity. He is the first of a handful of senior leaders who are expected to be prosecuted by a tribunal  run by the Cambodian government with the assistance of the United Nations.

Cambodians want to know: 'Why did the Khmer Rouge kill so many?'

Duch, who oversaw the deaths of tens of thousands of Cambodian men, some of whom were his colleagues, extended family and friends, as well as women, children and babies, claims to have no answers.

His defence plea has been that he was simply following orders. Those orders included dropping babies from the balconies of the infamous interrogation centre Tuol Sleng,  of which Duch was the director,   because they were a distraction to  torture    he oversaw.

To many Cambodians, Duch, now a gaunt 64-year-old,   is a monster. But as Nic Dunlop,  an authority on Duch,  said,  monsters are often like you and I.

'The thing about these monsters is that they are often very ordinary people, who are very charismatic, very friendly, open, charming and even garrulous,' he said.

Dunlop wrote a book on Duch called The Lost Executioner,  after he spent years searching for Duch, who many had presumed was dead following the fall of the Khmer Rouge.

When Dunlop found Duch in 1999, he  said he didn't discover a monster. 'On the contrary, he appeared to be showing genuine remorse for the things he had done in his past life.'

Indeed, if the 1970s  were excluded from Duch's life,  he would have been  ordinary.

He was born in 1942  into a poor, rural Sino-Khmer family. His father worked as a clerk and his mother grew vegetables and fruit to sell.  Duch was the eldest of five children and, being the only son, he enjoyed the privilege of an education and  rewarded his parents by becoming a star pupil.

Teachers were impressed by Duch's thirst for knowledge and his love of mathematics, and financially assisted his studies through secondary school and  college, where he trained to be a teacher.

Oddly enough, many of the senior figures in the Khmer Rouge would turn out to be former schoolteachers, including the regime's leader, Pol Pot.

Duch would  repay the kindness of his teachers with vicious brutality. One  who helped him would years later arrive at Tuol Sleng. The teacher was accused of being an enemy of the Khmer Rouge  and Duch showed no mercy: the teacher was tortured and put to death.

It was during his time at teachers' college that Duch was exposed to the Communist Party of Kampuchea,  which would  become known as the Khmer Rouge. It drew in young Duch, who, after becoming a teacher in 1965, soon headed a communist cell.

Students of Duch  recalled him as a good, patient and kind teacher whose worst habits were chain-smoking and dressing poorly. There was no sign of violence.

His work for the  party and his speeches against the 'fascist' regime of King Norodom Sihanouk, who was  prime minister, would eventually land him in prison in the late 1960s where he spent two years and was probably tortured. During this time, it is likely that Duch learned some of the torture techniques  employed at Tuol Sleng.

Duch was released  in an amnesty  granted to political prisoners  and he fled into the arms of the Khmer Rouge.

He  emerged with the name Comrade Duch and a role in special security running prisons, where enemies of the Khmer Rouge were tortured and killed.

Those prisons were the precursor to Tuol Sleng in Phnom Penh that Duch operated for three years.

At least 14,000 Cambodians were tortured and slaughtered under Duch's supervision at the prison. Torture methods included beatings, rape, electrocution and water  boarding. Blood was drained from many of the dead bodies and used at a nearby hospital.

After the Khmer Rouge fell, Duch went into hiding for 20 years. He changed his name to Hang Pin  and abandoned Buddhism for Christianity, perhaps  to be forgiven for sins  committed in this lifetime.

Duch worked with aid groups until he was exposed in 1999 by Dunlop. Shortly afterwards, he was arrested and held in a military detention centre until being charged this week.

Fears remain  he may become a scapegoat for the crimes  of the other Khmer Rouge senior leaders, who  have yet to be charged.

Many of  them have lived a life of luxury and freedom in Cambodia since the end of the madness they perpetrated almost three decades ago.



World wants to know what made Duch a killer