The first high profile member of Cambodia’s murderous Khmer Rouge regime to go on trial will appear in court on Tuesday charged with crimes against humanity, 30 years after the collapse of the movement’s Year Zero society.

Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his nom de guerre “Duch”, was the head of the Tuol Sleng interrogation centre in Phnom Penh. More than 15,000 people are believed to have passed through the centre, known as Security Prison 21 during its infamous heyday between 1975 and 1979. Only 12 are known to have survived.