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Today, a former Khmer Rouge official was sentenced to 35 years in prison for his role in the death of nearly two million Cambodians during the time of the “Killing Fields.” The verdict was the first to be handed down against a senior member of the Khmer Rouge regime. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad reports from Phnom Penh.

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JEB SHARP: The Khmer Rouge brought an extraordinary level of brutality to Cambodia. The radical communists turned the country into “killing fields.” The Khmer Rouge was overthrown 31 years ago, but no senior figure from the movement has ever faced justice in person until now. Today, a UN-backed tribunal in Phnom Penh convicted and sentenced a man known as Duch. Duch ran a torture center that killed more than 12,000 people. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad reports from the Cambodian capital.

MARY KAY MAGISTAD:  Cambodians crowded into a courthouse on the edge of town this morning and spilled out onto muddy grounds outside the building. They were here to watch as Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, finally faced justice.

MALE SPEAKER: All rise.

MAGISTAD: The proceedings were broadcast live throughout the country, including the moment when the defendant stood, to hear the verdict

MALE SPEAKER:  The chamber finds Kaing Guek Eav guilty of crimes against humanity, persecution on political grounds.

MAGISTAD: Then the judge read the sentence.

MALE SPEAKER: The majority of the chamber sentences Kaing Guek Eav to a single sentence of 35 years of imprisonment.

MAGISTAD: 35 years. But then, take away 11 years Duch already served in pre-trial detention, and another five years to compensate him for the fact that Cambodia’s military court locked Duch up before the trial for much longer than Cambodian law allows. That means Duch faces no more than another 19 years in prison, in part because he cooperated with the court, admitted some responsibility, and apologized. Survivor Ouch Saody lost her parents and most of her family under the Khmer Rouge. Ouch came here from Lowell, Massachusetts to hear the verdict and she was appalled.

OUCH SAODY: I feel very uncomfortable and not happy. It’s very hard for me to describe. I feel I want to cry.

MAGISTAD: What were you hoping to hear today in the courtroom?

SAODY: I thought they might like put him the rest of his life in prison. That’s what I think. That’s what I expected. But, I don’t know.

MAGISTAD: It was a commonly heard sentiment today. New Zealander Paul Everingham lost a friend in S-21, the torture center Duch ran.

PAUL EVERINGHAM:  I can not understand how a man who has been convicted of these crimes can hope to be free again. The man is only 67 years old. He’s a very fit, active, mentally alert man. And there’s every possibility that he’ll be walking down the street as a free man one day.   And to me this is just astonishing.

MAGISTAD: But some say it’s astonishing that an international tribunal in a Cambodian court was able to conduct a reasonably fair trial. Attorney Karim Khan represented Cambodian victims of the Khmer Rouge.

KARIM KHAN: It’s obviously a very important day in the history of Cambodia, and an epoch-making event in the life of this court. Very importantly, the judges have found that the terrible crimes that took place in S-21 were proved beyond reasonable doubt.

MAGISTAD: Most Cambodians are too young to remember the Khmer Rouge reign of the late 1970s, when almost two million Cambodians were killed, starved or worked to death. Many young Cambodians doubted their parent’s stories about the Khmer Rouge until this trial was broadcast live. 23-year-old Panh Chandara says the sentence seems fair to him, because, he says, Duch is already an old man.

PANH CHANDARA: I’m not clear about the victim’s feelings. And my feelings is not severe like them.

MAGISTAD: For you, is this important?

CHANDARA: I think it’s important, because all the people remind about the Khmer regime. They don’t want to see it again. And for me, also.

MAGISTAD: What is happening now in Cambodia, government corruption, land-grabbing, and a political culture of fear and intimidation, reminds some people of what the country was like in the years before the Khmer Rouge movement gained momentum. Cambodian legislator and leading opposition figure Mu Sochua says the current culture of political violence and impunity worries her. She hopes the tribunal will teach Cambodians a lesson.

MU SOCHUA:  Those who violate the law must be tried. I mean the leaders today, I’m not talking about Khmer Rouge. They have their trial. But, especially the top leaders today who feel that they live above the law must be given a signal that it is not acceptable. We cannot go back to the Killing Fields.

MAGISTAD: Cambodia is unlikely to go back to the Killing Fields. Those were, after all, a creation of a radical Communist regime at a particular time in history. The challenge for Cambodian’s now is to go forward, to a different kind of relationship between the powerful and the common people, to a society in which laws matter, courts are independent and anyone can be held to account. Today’s verdict could be a step in that direction. For The World, I’m Mary Kay Magistad in Phnom Penh.

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