Mak Remissa / EPA

A journalist takes pictures from a TV screen broadcasting the live feed showing former Chief S-21 prison Kaing Guek Eav alias 'Duch' (top), in the courtroom at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia on Friday, Feb. 3, 2012 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

AP reports: The Khmer Rouge tribunal's Supreme Court has ordered the regime's chief jailer to serve life imprisonment, a surprise ruling that stiffens a 19-year sentence imposed by a lower court.

Kaing Guek Eav — also known as Duch — was commander of the notorious S-21 prison where thousands of Cambodians were tortured before execution.

In 2010, the tribunal's lower court convicted him of war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and murder.