When Kang Guek Eav fronts the United Nations-sanctioned court tomorrow much will be at stake. For the former death camp commander, more widely known as Duch, his fate will finally be told. Luke Hunt reports for Spectrum.

As chief torturer and executioner during the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge rule, he faces a life sentence for the deaths of about 16,000 people who were processed at S21, headquarters of the secret police constructed within an abandoned high school in suburban Tuol Sleng.

Prosecutors are demanding 40 years although time off for the 11 years already spent behind bars could see this whittled back substantially.

Any reduction will anger the handful of S21 survivors.