Below is an article published by the Associated Press:

The United States has welcomed the move by Cambodia's genocide tribunal to proceed with trying a former Khmer Rouge prison chief on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The U.S. Embassy said Wednesday [13 August 2008] that the tribunal's indictment of Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, "is a very good first step toward acknowledging and healing the suffering inflicted upon the Cambodian people" by the radical communist group in the 1970s.

"The people of Cambodia have stoically waited a very long time for justice," embassy spokesman John Johnson said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

The group's radical policies are considered responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million people from starvation, disease, overwork and execution.

On Tuesday [12 August 2008], the U.N.-assisted tribunal's investigating judges issued a 45-page indictment of Duch, who headed the main Khmer Rouge prison in Phnom Penh.

The judges ordered him to stand trial as they closed their yearlong inquiry into his case.

Duch is the first suspect to be indicted by the tribunal. He and four other former senior members of the group, which ruled Cambodia in 1975-79, were taken into custody last year [2007]. No date has yet been set for a trial.

Duch, 66, headed S-21 prison, which was the Khmer Rouge's largest torture facility. About 16,000 men, women and children are believed to have been held there. Only 14 are thought to have survived.