The head of the Khmer Rouge's most notorious prison appeared in front of a tribunal in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, today, accused of crimes against humanity.
It was the first public appearance before the UN-backed court by a top Khmer Rouge official since the regime inflicted mass slaughter on its own people 30 years ago.
Armed guards escorted Duch, also known as Kaing Guek Eav, into a packed courtroom on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. He is seeking bail before a panel of five Cambodian and international judges.
"My name is Kaing Guek Eav. I am 66 years old," Duch, dressed in a white shirt and holding his palms together in a sign of respect, told the court.
A presiding judge read aloud from Duch's case file, saying: "Under his authority, countless abuses were committed, including mass murder, arbitrary detention and torture."
In July, Duch was charged with crimes against humanity for his role as the head of the regime's infamous Tuol Sleng prison, also called S-21, in Phnom Penh.
Up to 16,000 men, women and children were tortured there between 1975 and 1979, and were later taken away to be executed. Only a dozen are thought to have survived.
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 and children were among those butchered.
Duch - a born-again Christian - has confessed in interviews with western reporters that he committed multiple atrocities during his time as the head of the interrogation centre at Tuol Sleng.
Before his arrest by the court, he had been held in a military prison without trial since 1999. His lawyer, Kar Savuth, called this a "violation of international law and Cambodian law".
The bail hearing serves as a dry run for the $56m (£27.1m) court, which is due to begin full trials next year after a decade of delays caused by squabbles over jurisdiction and cash.
Four other top Khmer Rouge officials have been arrested and charged, including the 78-year-old former president Khieu Samphan, who was charged yesterday with crimes against humanity and war crimes. He is to appeal against his one-year provisional detention.
Duch is expected to be a key witness in the trial of other senior Khmer Rouge leaders, including the former foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife - both life-long friends of "Brother Number One", Pol Pot, and "Brother Number Two", Nuon Chea.
The four others have denied knowledge of any atrocities as Pol Pot sought to create a peasant utopia that turned into "the killing fields".
The regime was overthrown by a Vietnamese invasion in 1979, and Pol Pot died in the final Khmer Rouge redoubt of Anlong Veng in 1998.
Outside the court, hundreds of Cambodians gathered to catch a glimpse of the infamous chief interrogator of the Khmer Rouge.
"This is historic," Sin Khor, whose husband and two brothers died during the Khmer Rouge reign, told the Associated Press. "Thirty years have passed. But what happened then remains alive for me."