Phnom Penh  - A French man detained at a Khmer Rouge torture prison said the facility's chief reminded him of his own friends, during his testimony Wednesday as the first witness before Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal.

Francois Bizot, an anthropologist who was imprisoned for three months the ultra-Maoist group's pre-revolutionary prison, expressed sympathy for Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, who faces charges of crimes against humanity, torture, premeditated murder and violations of the Geneva Conventions.

Bangkok - Two short, sharp border clashes with Cambodia that left at least two Thai soldiers dead last week will not sour essentially good relations between the two neighbours, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva Sunday.

Thai and Cambodia troops engaged in at least two brisk shootouts Friday that killed two Thai soldiers and wounded a dozen more on disputed ground near the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple, located 350 kilometres north-east of Bangkok.

Phnom Penh  - Cambodian and Thai soldiers exchanged gunfire Friday morning at a disputed border area where a fatal skirmish between the South-East Asian neighbours erupted last year, a government spokesman in Phnom Penh said.

No casualties were reported in the clash at the ninth-century Preah Vihear temple, government spokesman Phay Siphan said.

He said about a dozen Thai troops crossed the border about 7.15 am (0015 GMT) and were immediately confronted by Cambodian soldiers.

Phnom Penh - Lawyers for the former chief torturer of Cambodia's genocidal Khmer Rouge on Wednesday requested his release from prison, one day after he made a historic public apology and admitted guilt before a UN-backed tribunal.

Kaing Guek Eav, known by his revolutionary alias Duch, faces charges of crimes against humanity, torture, premeditated murder and breaches of the Geneva Conventions, but defence lawyers said his almost 10 years of pre-trial detention violated international law and the Cambodian constitution.

Phnom Penh  - Prosecutors at Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal on Tuesday told of prisoners at a notorious Khmer Rouge torture facility being bludgeoned to death, thrown from buildings and drained of their blood during the radical regime's 1975-79 reign.

In their opening arguments in the trial of former Tuol Sleng torture prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, known by his revolutionary name Duch, prosecutors described a meticulously organized apparatus of nearly four years of terror.