Khmer Rouge jail chief Duch seeks acquittal

PHNOM PENH (AFP) – Former Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch asked Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court Friday to acquit and release him, in a surprise development on the final day of arguments in his nine-month trial.

"I would ask the chambers to release me. Thank you very much," Duch said at the end of his closing statement to the court, officially known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.

Following a query by judges, his Cambodian lawyer Kar Savuth then confirmed that Duch was asking to be acquitted on the grounds that he was not a senior member of the brutal 1975-1979 communist regime.