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.

Handout / Reuters

Former Khmer Rouge leader "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea sits in the court room at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) on the outskirts of Phnom Penh in this handout picture taken and provided by the ECCC on Monday, Dec. 5, 2011.

AP reports:

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The No. 2 leader of Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime told a court he and his comrades were not "bad people," denying responsibility Monday for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians during their 1970s rule.

Nuon Chea's defiant statements came as the U.N.-backed tribunal began questioning him for the first time since the long-awaited trial of three top regime leaders began late last month. Nuon Chea and two other Khmer Rouge leaders are accused of crimes against humanity, genocide, religious persecution, homicide and torture stemming from the group's 1975-79 reign of terror. All have denied wrongdoing.

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Tang Chhin Sothy / AFP - Getty Images

Students re-enact the crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime to mark the annual 'Day of Anger' at the Choeung Ek killing fields memorial in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on May 20.

Tang Chhin Sothy / AFP - Getty Images

A woman wipes her eyes during the annual 'Day of Anger' at the Choeung Ek killing fields memorial in Phnom Penh.

Tang Chhin Sothy / AFP - Getty Images

Students from a fine arts school take part in a performance to mark the annual 'Day of Anger' at the Choeung Ek killing fields memorial.

Thousand of Cambodians watched as students re-enacted a Khmer Rouge massacre at a "Day of Anger" ceremony at a notorious killing field outside Phnom Penh on Friday.

About 1.7 million people died of starvation, exhaustion, lack of medical care or torture during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror in the 1970s.

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