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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 30, 2009 20:15:23 GMT
This will surely be a long and painful process. HW -- what is the reaction so far among the populace where you live? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The New York Times March 31, 2009 Trials of Khmer Rouge Officials Begin By SETH MYDANS
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Testimony opened Monday at the first trial of a Khmer Rouge official, with a detailed description of the internal workings and methods of interrogation in the regime’s central torture house.
In statements contained in a long indictment read by court officials, the defendant, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, admitted ordering and taking part in systematic torture that sometimes continued for days.
In his statements, made during pretrial investigations, he said he was working on orders from the top Khmer Rouge leadership, an assertion that appeared to implicate four other defendants who have also been arrested and are awaiting trial.
Thirty years after the regime was deposed, he is the first person to take the stand and answer for one of the most horrific episodes of mass killing in the past century, in which 1.7 million people are estimated to have died from 1975 to 1979 of starvation, overwork, disease or execution.
The trial has opened, with the backing of the United Nations, amid controversy over allegations of corruption and political influence by the government, which critics have accused of trying to limit the scope of the indictments.
The former commandant of Tuol Sleng Prison, Duch, 66, is charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as with murder, in the deaths of at least 14,000 people, almost all of whom were tortured before they were executed. Only a handful of the prisoners at Tuol Sleng survived.
In addition to torture, some inmates were subjected to medical experiments, including “live autopsies,” the drawing of blood and experimentation with home-made medications, according to Duch’s statements contained in the indictment.
Testimony Monday involved the reading of a detailed description of the charges against Duch (the name is pronounced doik). Statements from the prosecution and defense should follow, then from witnesses and the defendant. The trial is expected to last about four months.
Through his French lawyer, François Roux, Duch has admitted his role and apologized to the victims, but he also was quoted Monday as saying he feared for his life if he did not follow orders.
Neatly dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt, Duch stood at the start of the proceedings to give his name, as well as a string of aliases, and to confirm that he understood the charges against him.
A former schoolteacher, Duch disappeared after the Khmer Rouge was routed by a Vietnamese invasion in 1979.
He was found in 1999 by a British journalist, living quietly in a small Cambodian town, where he said he had converted to Christianity. He was arrested shortly afterward and has been in custody since.
According to the charges read Monday, the prisoners brought to Tuol Sleng were presumed guilty. Even if they had been mistakenly arrested, they were killed to preserve the secrecy of the prison, the indictment said.
Much of the work of the prison involved internal purges that consumed the Khmer Rouge regime, according to the indictment. Those who were arrested were not told the charges against them, but were forced to confess to crimes in coerced statements that often ran to hundreds of pages.
Many of the arrests were made on the basis of names given by prisoners under torture, and were followed by further arrests of the new prisoner’s family and associates in a widening skein — an attempt to root out supposed enemies.
Duch implicated his superiors directly, according to the indictment, telling investigators, “If I remember well, there never were any exceptions: I always reported to the superiors and they always ordered the arrest of the persons implicated.”
The other four defendants are surviving members of the Khmer Rouge leadership: Ieng Sary, who was foreign minister; Nuon Chea, known as Brother Number Two; Khieu Samphan, who was head of state; and Ieng Thirith, who was minister of social affairs.
All have denied the charges against them, which include crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Several other top figures have died, including the Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, known as Brother Number One, in 1998.
Witnesses quoted in the indictment said Duch instructed them in methods of torture that included beatings, electric shocks, suffocation in plastic bags and the removal of fingernails and toenails.
Duch was quoted as saying he introduced three methods of torture — “cold,” “hot” and “chewing.” The cold method employed propaganda without the use of torture or insults. The hot method included “insults, beatings and other torture authorized by the regulations.”
The chewing method consisted, in Duch’s quoted words, of “gentle explanations in order to establish confidence followed by prayers to the interrogated person, continually inviting her or him to write” a confession.
Another witness told investigators torture could be used if “chewing” failed to bring results in two or three days.
One quoted witness said Duch was involved in one interrogation in which a woman was stripped to her underwear and beaten long into the night. The witness said Duch beat her until he tired, and passed on the task to another torturer.
Interrogation sessions followed a regular schedule — from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m., from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. — but could also last long past midnight, the indictment said. Interrogations could go on for days and were only considered complete when a confession was obtained.
“Duch meticulously read, analyzed, annotated and summarized the majority of these confessions for his superiors,” the indictment said.
But it quoted Duch as saying that both he and his superiors were “skeptical of the veracity of the confessions.” It quoted him as saying they were used as “excuses to eliminate those who represented obstacles” to the regime.
Throughout the interrogations, the indictment said, untrained medical personnel, sometimes including unsupervised children, worked to keep prisoners alive until they confessed and could be sent to a killing field.
Mark McDonald contributed from Hong Kong.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2009 20:45:20 GMT
This is a major topic in France as well. As a human being, my first thought is "I'm tired of this; wasn't it long enough ago to just drop the subject?" -- but I was never a victim or risked being a victim.
If one compares this to WW2, it is clear that even 60 years is not enough forgive atrocities and that all culprits should be hunted down and punished. On tonight's news, they were showing someone who was just a little boy when taken to S-21. He broke down and cried the moment a question was asked about it.
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Post by hwinpp on Mar 31, 2009 7:14:33 GMT
I'm not sure if people here are very interested in the trial. I just read the articles in the Phnom Penh Post, they're online as well.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 24, 2010 19:20:10 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2010 4:45:36 GMT
They just mentioned the verdict on French TV this morning. I hope that the evening news will develop the topic more extensively.
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Post by hwinpp on Jul 28, 2010 3:38:46 GMT
I was out that evening with a couple of Khmer friends, the sentencing wasn't something we talked about.
IMO the sentence is fair. So Duch will have 19 more years to serve.
Regarding the other 4, I think they'll get off with less.
What intrigues me is that Ieng Sary has been sentenced to death before, by the Vietnamese. But the sentence never was carried out. So how can they try him again for the same crimes?
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 28, 2010 3:48:32 GMT
He'll be 68 this year and looking to grow old in prison.
Really, this gets into the whole question of justice vs. vengeance. If 1/100th of what people would like to do to him was done, what purpose would it serve in a civilized world?
If Ieng Sary was sentenced by a Vietnamese court, that wouldn't preclude his being tried by the Cambodian Tribunal, would it? My question is about his pardon by the former king -- does it have any standing now? Also, if a person is pardoned, that's not the same as saying he's not guilty.
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Post by bjd on Jul 28, 2010 7:51:22 GMT
I read in the paper that the four officials have pleaded not guilty. I have a feeling it will all drag on. Maybe the courts don't want to deal with it and are hoping they will die beforehand. Look at Pol Pot -- died in his bed, unlike all those thousands of people that were killed. Duch is going to appeal. Have any of you read the book by a Frenchman, François Bizot, who was imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge, who was watched by Duch while being tied to a tree. In French it was called Le Portail. Very good book. I don't know if it was translated into English. www.amazon.fr/Portail-Francois-Bizot/dp/2070417654
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Post by hwinpp on Jul 28, 2010 7:55:41 GMT
Ok, I'm actually a proponent of veangence but I think in this case it'd be difficult to actually feel good if he had received a more severe sentence. There are so many that are saying he should have been let free (because he's small fry compared to the other four) that the divisiveness caused would have led to less healing. Re Ieng Sary, I think not being able to be tried twice for the sam crime is a fundamant of law. If he's been tried, sentenced and pardoned, what precedent is the EEEC setting? Doesn't look good to me. Much cheaper and more valuable in my eyes would have been setting up a network in the provinces along the lines of the truth and reconciliation tribunals from Africa.
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Post by bjd on Jun 27, 2011 11:54:23 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 27, 2011 14:49:43 GMT
In one way, I'm inclined to think that everyone who carried out the orders of those monsters should be rounded up and all exiled to some remote island or something.
We always talk about the those at the top, but if they didn't have thousands of willing minions, these horrors could not have taken place. I'm speaking of all such regimes and genocidal programs, not just this one.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2011 16:31:50 GMT
I was curious as to the pulse on what people there were thinking,saying about this as well HW. The atrocities committed are difficult to wrap my head around. I'd like to say I'm not a vengeful person,but,it sure does rear it's head. BJD,was the book you mentioned graphic and grizzly in detail? I'm asking because I may want to read it,but,maybe not.... Thanks for taking the time to post the NYT piece Bixa.
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Post by bjd on Jun 27, 2011 17:08:03 GMT
Casimira, the book was extremely good and gave a very complete picture of what it was like. Of course, it was difficult, but not gruesome. I did not read or go see The Killing Fields, for example.
What is gruesome is the minds of the Khmer Rouge leaders.
Bixa, of course there were minions, but the leaders have the responsibility. When people are being beaten up and starved for disobeying, how many of us have the courage to disobey?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2011 17:31:40 GMT
I have an S-21 photo thread coming up some day, when I get the guts to do it. I have been there twice.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 27, 2011 18:28:56 GMT
I believe I said willing minions, Bjd. There have been lowly guards from WWII concentration camps prosecuted because those incarcerated there remembered the unnecessary zeal with which they did their jobs. Obviously the leaders have responsibility, but so do those who were "only following orders".
Kerouac, what prompted you to go twice, please?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2011 19:41:10 GMT
Well, the second time I took a friend, because I am the sort of person who believes that everybody should be subjected to this. She did not defy me because I promised that we would also go shopping for silk at the Russian market. (No, that is not true -- even though she was afraid it would be too intense, she did want to see the awful place, particularly as we had already visited the killing fields, too.)
Oh, and we got some excellent stuff at the Russian market.
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Post by hwinpp on Jun 28, 2011 3:00:18 GMT
I'm happy it's finally starting! They should go through this whole thing while the accused are alive. This will be case 2, trying the four highest leaders still alive, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, his wife Ieng Thirit and Khieu Sampanh. Case 1 saw Duch getting 30 years (of which 19 remain to be served).
They haveto try and keep the trial moving though, Cambodia has a very young population and the young aren't that interested. A lot don't even believe it happened.
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Post by hwinpp on Jun 29, 2011 7:44:19 GMT
Case 002: Day 2THE Khmer Rouge tribunal continued today with the second day of hearings in the trial of the four most senior surviving leaders of Democratic Kampuchea, with debate focusing largely on the 1996 pardon and amnesty granted to former KR foreign minister Ieng Sary. In addition to Ieng Sary and his wife, former KR social action minister Ieng Thirith, the case also features former KR head of state Khieu Samphan and Brother Number 2 Nuon Chea. For the second day in a row, Nuon Chea left the hearing early in the morning, telling the judges that he would return to the Trial Chamber when his own case was considered. Today’s hearing instead focused on Ieng Sary, who received a pardon signed by then-King Norodom Sihanouk upon defecting to the government in 1996. Sihanouk pardoned Ieng Sary in relation to his 1979 conviction at the People’s Revolutionary Tribunal, where he was sentenced to death in absentia along with regime leader Pol Pot, and granted him amnesty from prosecution under the 1994 Law to Outlaw the Democratic Kampuchea Group, which criminalised membership in the Khmer Rouge. In a decision earlier this year, the court’s Pre-Trial Chamber ruled that this pardon and amnesty were no bar to Ieng Sary’s current prosecution. The pardon, they said, related only to Ieng Sary’s 1979 conviction in absentia at the People’s Revolutionary Tribunal, set up shortly after the Khmer Rouge; the amnesty, they said, applied only to the 1994 law and not to the charges under domestic and international law that Ieng Sary currently faces at the tribunal. However, this ruling is not binding on the court’s Trial Chamber, and defence lawyers argued today that the tribunal could not prosecute him. “Mr Ieng Sary negotiated that he would only reintegrate [with the Cambodian government] if he received an amnesty from any future prosecutions for any alleged acts,” defence lawyer Ang Udom said. “This was a non-negotiable condition.” Prosecutors argued, however, that the amnesty did not apply to genocide and other charges listed in the current indictment against Ieng Sary, and in any case, that amnesties may not be given under international law for crimes of such gravity. www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011062850047/Online-Edition/case-002-day-2.html
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 4, 2011 14:19:30 GMT
I'm happy it's finally starting! They should go through this whole thing while the accused are alive. ...
They have to try and keep the trial moving though, Cambodia has a very young population and the young aren't that interested. A lot don't even believe it happened. Excellent points, HW. A few years ago I returned to a place I'd loved over thirty years previously. Of course it was changed in so many ways, which disappointed me. Then I realized that most of the people I was passing on the street had not even been born when I was there before. Thus, the things that had shaped me, my memories of world events in the early 70s, and my knowledge of the disappearing culture in that place made me almost a different species from the youthful inhabitants. Prosecutors argued, however, that the amnesty did not apply to genocide and other charges listed in the current indictment against Ieng Sary, and in any case, that amnesties may not be given under international law for crimes of such gravity. That makes total sense.
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Post by hwinpp on Nov 23, 2011 3:58:58 GMT
KR crimes recounted Prosecution paints picture of regime’s ‘nightmare’ ruleA chronological tale of death and devastation spanning the length of the Khmer Rouge regime’s nearly four-year reign unfolded yesterday morning as Cambodian Co-Prosecutor Chea Leang delivered her opening statement in Case 002. “The accused turned Cambodia into a massive slave camp, reducing an entire nation to a system of brutality that defies belief,” Chea Leang told the Khmer Rouge tribunal Trial Chamber yesterday. “One in four people did not survive.” Opening statements have begun this week in the second case at the tribunal, which was established for the sole purpose of prosecuting the crimes of the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s. In the defence docks sat “Brother Number 2” Nuon Chea, former Khmer Rouge Minister for Foreign Affairs Ieng Sary and former Khmer Rouge nominal head of state Khieu Samphan. Former Khmer Rouge Social Affairs Minister Ieng Thirth is no longer a part of Case 002 proceedings, after the Trial Chamber last week found her unfit to stand trial. Court-appointed experts believe she suffers from dementia, most likely Alzheimer’s. “The nightmare of the [Khmer Rouge] rule began with the evacuation of urban centres on April 17, 1975,” Chea Leang said as she commenced a narrative of horror detailing the initial forced movement of the urban population in the early months of the regime. “Blood streaked the floors” of overwhelmed hospitals as Cambodians were rounded up and forced out of urban areas, Chea Leang said, a sense of fear gripped inhabitants, and later witnesses would recall stepping on the sun-shriveled bodies of the dead that had fallen on the roads out of the city centre during the evacuation march. It is almost impossible to tell exactly how many Cambodians perished under the Khmer Rouge. Prosecutors today estimated somewhere between 1.7 and 2.2 million. Prime Minister Hun Sen puts the number of those who died at more than 3 million. The important challenge for the prosecution over the coming months will be proving that the three accused were senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime or those “most responsible” for the atrocities, conditions stipulated by the tribunal’s mandate. Nuon Chea, who sat through all of yesterday’s opening statements, has requested he be severed from Case 002, claiming he is unfit to stand trial due to his ill-physical health. A central part of Ieng Sary’s defence is that a royal amnesty and pardon he received from the government in 1996 as part of a deal that made the Khmer Rouge illegal, prevents him from being prosecuted for the same crimes again. Lawyers for both Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary interjected at the beginning of yesterday’s proceedings and requested that New Zealand Trial Chamber Judge Silvia Cartwright step down from her judicial position immediately, pending an investigation into alleged secret, ex-parte meetings she had been conducting over the past year with British prosecutor Andrew Cayley and tribunal deputy director of administration Knut Rosandhaug. Ieng Sary requested that a statement he had drafted regarding the matter be read aloud in court, but Trial Chamber president Nil Non said the chamber would not entertain his request, saying that the court would consider the filings of the defence teams regarding Cartwright in “due course”. Education materials distributed at the opening statements yesterday included a statement from Prime Minister Hun Sen. “Not a single one of our people have been spared from the ravages brought upon our country,” said Hun Sen, who himself was a Khmer Rouge cadre in the east of the Kingdom before defecting to a resistance movement backed by the Vietnamese. Among those attending the court yesterday to observe the start of the trial were some who had served the regime. Chhim Porn, a former Banteay Meanchey Khmer Rouge deputy commune chief, said he came to the court yesterday to see the trial against the three accused senior leaders and compare their guilt with his own. As a deputy commune chief, he personally executed a couple in front of a crowd of hundreds of cheering villagers. The couple had fallen in love with each other, a treacherous act that was sharply punished by Khmer Rouge forced-marriage orchestrators. “I was a member of the commune, but they appointed me as a killer,” Chhim Phan said. “My guilt is not because of my intention. I received the order for the prosecution of the couple from Ta Ath.” Phy Pheoun, a former messenger for Ieng Sary, denied his former employer’s guilt. “I think that Ieng Sary, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan should not be accused,” he said. “I travelled across the provinces, but I didn’t see any people die during the regime. “I saw that people faced great difficulty from hard work, but I didn’t see any killing.” Opening statements from the defence will proceed today and tomorrow. www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2011112252895/National-news/kr-crimes-recounted.htmlIeng Sary's wife, Ieng Thirith, is off the hook already. She's been diagnosed with dementia, probably Alzheimer's. Only three left to try.
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Post by hwinpp on Nov 23, 2011 6:41:12 GMT
Defendant Says Khmer Rouge’s Aim Was to Protect Cambodia From VietnamPHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The highest-ranking surviving Khmer Rouge leader, accused in the deaths of 1.7 million people, defended himself on Tuesday by casting his actions as part of a patriotic struggle to keep Vietnam from annexing Cambodia and exterminating ethnic Cambodians. Presenting what could have been the condensed version of a political address from his days as the Khmer Rouge’s chief ideologue in the 1970s, the defendant, Nuon Chea, 85, spoke of threats from Vietnamese agents as a justification for the purges that led to the torture and killings that defined the Khmer Rouge regime. It was the first time a Khmer Rouge leader offered a detailed defense in court for the atrocities committed by the radical Communist regime from 1975 to 1979. “I have been given an opportunity today that I have been waiting for for so long, and that is to explain to my beloved Cambodian people and their Khmer children the events that occurred in Cambodian history,” Mr. Nuon Chea said. Placing himself in the heroic company of Cambodian patriots, he said, “I would like to pay my respects to our ancestors who sacrificed their flesh, blood, bone and life to defend our motherland.” His audience in the courthouse, including two busloads of university students in white shirts, listened intently to the explanation Cambodians have been seeking from the trial for why the Khmer Rouge ravaged their country. “We don’t know which part is wrong and which is right,” said Radet Hak, 21, a law student. “I want to hear more later.” he court sessions this week, including statements by prosecutors and defendants, are being broadcast around the country. Mr. Nuon Chea is one of three top Khmer Rouge leaders being tried on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity at the tribunal, which is backed by the United Nations. Frail and unsteady on his feet, Mr. Nuon Chea seemed to swell in the witness box with the certainty that he had been wronged by history. He accused the court of being “unfair to me since the beginning,” because the trial was addressing the acts of the Khmer Rouge without reference to their cause and context. “I must say only the body of the crocodile is to be discussed, not its head or tail, which are the important parts of its daily activities,” he said. He did not address in detail the horrifying catalog of brutality and mass killings presented by prosecutors, saying merely that “whatever was indicated in the opening statements is not true.” The prosecutors have accused him and his co-defendants, Ieng Sary, 86, and Khieu Samphan, 80, of command responsibility for atrocities committed according to their plan and with their involvement. A fourth defendant, Ieng Thirith, 79, the former minister of social affairs, was dropped from the case last week when the court found her to be unable to participate because of dementia. In an earlier case, Kaing Guek Eav, 69, known as Duch, the commandant of the main Khmer Rouge prison, Tuol Sleng, was sentenced in 2010 to 35 years in prison, later reduced to 19 years. “My position in the revolution is to serve the interests of the nation and the people,” Mr. Nuon Chea said. “Oppression and injustice compelled me to devote myself to fight for my country. I had to leave my family behind to liberate my motherland from colonialism and aggression and oppression by thieves who wish to steal our land and wipe Cambodia off the face of the earth.” Another law student at the courthouse, Vessna Roschan, 21, said: “I don’t believe him, because 1.7 million people died. Nuon Chea says, ‘I am protecting the Cambodian people, I protect Cambodian culture,’ but I don’t believe him because many people in my family died, around 24 people.” Mr. Nuon Chea began his statement with an account of the early years of the Cambodian Communist movement and its struggle to remain independent of the larger and more powerful Vietnamese Communist Party during the years of the Vietnam War. He said the Vietnamese Communists, who had hoped to control their Cambodian counterparts, were disappointed when Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, fell to the Khmer Rouge on April 17, 1975, two weeks before the fall of Saigon to the Vietnamese Communists. After the war was over, he said, “Vietnam’s cadres still continued to remain discreetly on Cambodian soil in order to conquer this country in accordance with the ambition to occupy, annex and swallow Cambodia and rid Cambodia of her race and ethnicity” — an ambition he said continued today. In Cambodian society, suspicions of Vietnam run deep, and it is not unusual for people to imagine the involvement of Vietnamese agents in local events. Mr. Nuon Chea said this suspicion of subversives and traitors was part of the reason for the evacuation of Phnom Penh and other cities immediately after the Khmer Rouge victory, forcing most people into the countryside, a policy that prosecutors said cost thousands of lives. He denied that the Khmer Rouge had tricked and then murdered officials of the former government who surrendered after the overthrow, saying that impostors disguised in the black outfits of the revolutionaries were responsible. He said the American bombing of Cambodia in 1969 radicalized many Cambodians and fueled the growth of the Khmer Rouge, but he blamed Vietnam for all that went wrong after the group took power. “The Vietnam factor is the main factor that caused confusion in Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979,” he said, using the formal name for the country under the Khmer Rouge government. He said nothing to the court about the systematic atrocities described by prosecutors, nor about their contention that he had personally ordered the torture and killing of particular prisoners. But in video recordings played by the prosecution before he testified, he is heard acknowledging the killings, saying that “if we had shown mercy to these people, our nation would have been lost.” “We didn’t kill many,” he continued. “We only killed the bad people, not the good.” www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/world/asia/defendant-says-khmer-rouge-saved-cambodia-from-vietnam.html?_r=1
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Post by bjd on Nov 23, 2011 10:34:25 GMT
The first post on this thread is from March 2009!
It's frustrating to see these guys who have lived to be old, when they are guilty of killing so many people who never had the chance to grow up and live their lives. Now this court case will drag on for ages too and they will never be punished and, obviously from today's testimony, never regret anything.
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Post by hwinpp on Nov 24, 2011 4:10:31 GMT
And they lived very well! Huge villas, big SUVs, no worries.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 24, 2011 6:03:59 GMT
The fact that any one of them would stand up in court and attempt to justify anything is mind boggling, nauseating arrogance.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2012 8:04:04 GMT
Life term for Cambodia Khmer Rouge jailer Duch
Cambodia's UN-backed genocide court has rejected an appeal by Khmer Rouge jailer Duch and increased his sentence to life imprisonment.
Duch, born Kaing Guek Eav, was jailed in 2010 for his role in running a notorious prison where thousands of inmates were killed.
He had appealed on the grounds that he was a junior official following orders.
But judges rejected his claim and increased his sentence from 35 years to life.
(from BBC News)
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Post by hwinpp on Feb 7, 2012 2:32:56 GMT
Duch verdict worries In the wake of the Khmer Rouge tribunal’s landmark life sentence for former S-21 prison director Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, rights groups have expressed concern that the sensational appeal decision masks worrying human rights implications. Victims rejoiced on Friday as the Supreme Court Chamber at the UN-backed tribunal scratched the original sentence against Duch and awarded him the maximum penalty under Cambodian criminal law – the rest of his life behind bars – for crimes the chamber called “undoubtedly among the worst in recorded human history”. However, rights groups and monitors are concerned the chamber’s dramatic sentence contains elements which could have dark ramifications for fair trial rights and the court’s remaining three cases. “The decision to overturn the legal remedy for Duch’s unlawful detention and to provide no alternative may be perceived as a case of public opinion trumping human rights,” Amnesty International’s Rupert Abbott said on Friday. The former chairman of the notorious interrogation facility was illegally detained by the Cambodian Military Court for eight years, a breach of human rights the Trial Chamber at the court had originally sought to remedy through a sentence reduction of five years. However, in a decision disputed by two of the international appellate judges, the chamber counted Duch’s illegal detention by the Cambodian Military as time served. The Cambodian Center for Human Rights considered this “a dangerous precedent for the Cambodian judiciary, who may be encouraged to ignore human rights abuses by other branches or institutions of government”. “Such a decision [to not remedy illegal detention] pangs of a lack of understanding of the role of judicial institutions in upholding human rights standards,” CCHR programs director Chak Sopheap said. CCHR has repeatedly reported on rampant excessive pre-trial detention in Cambodian prisons. Rights groups also raised a red flag over the “life sentence” awarded by the Supreme Court Chamber, which in fact allows for the possibility of parole for the 69-year-old Duch in fewer than eightyears. “Another concern with the judgment is the apparent decision to leave the issue of Duch’s eligibility for parole to the Cambodian justice system, which has been criticised for its lack of independence,” Amnesty International said in a news release on Friday. The Ministry of Interior, in conjunction with the tribunal’s co-prosecutors, will determine in which national prison Duch will serve his sentence, ECCC legal affairs spokesman Lars Olsen said yesterday. Duch will apply for parole with the court of first instance in the jurisdiction of the national prison he will be imprisoned at. Officials from the department of prisons were not available for comment yesterday. However, Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, who chairs the government’s tribunal task force, said on Friday that “the ECCC has followed due process, and conducted a fair trial in Case 001”, with the delivery of the verdict being a “historic day for our country and for all humanity”. Court monitors raised additional concerns with another ruling that has potential ramifications for two controversial cases in the hands of investigating judges. In rejecting Duch’s argument that he did not qualify as a “senior leader” of the regime and therefore did not fall within the court’s jurisdiction, the Supreme Court Chamber said jurisdiction is a policy determination to be made by co-prosecutors and co-investigating judges. Open Society Justice Initiative’s Clair Duffy said this was not an “expected outcome”, and that it could adversely impact cases 003 and 004, which are opposed by the government. The Supreme Court Chamber said jurisdiction was not an issue any of the judges from the tribunal’s three tiers of chambers could weigh in on. “My view is that this is very disappointing, particularly given the known controversies which already exist on this issue,” Duffy said yesterday, adding that there was a “small window open” for review of any abuse of this discretion. The two co-prosecutors have already registered disagreement over whether cases 003 and 004 fall within the court’s jurisdiction of “senior leaders” and “those most responsible” for the Khmer Rouge regime atrocities. International co-prosecutor Andrew Cayley alone submitted the two case briefs to the Office of the Co-Investigating Judges for investigation. The two co-investigating judges similarly appear divided on the progression of their workload. www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012020654337/National-news/duch-verdict-worries.html
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2014 5:28:28 GMT
A movie about Duch and François Bizot came out this week, Le Temps des Aveux (The Time for Confession). It is absolutely gripping. It includes the same scenes of all of the foreigners in the assieged French embassy in Phonm Penh which were already depicted in The Killing Fields. The person who plays Duch was the interpreter for his French lawyers during the trial.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 2, 2020 14:20:09 GMT
Duch has died at age 77.
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Post by lagatta on Sept 2, 2020 22:58:29 GMT
At least he died in prison, at least I presume?
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Post by questa on Sept 3, 2020 1:16:27 GMT
In the mid '90s I went to Cambodia and Laos. The latter was cool, laid back and getting on with mine clearing, rounding up the remnants of the various rebel groups and life in general. I could explore the cities and country side where curious children had not seen a westerner for years. Then I went into Cambodia and was hit by a totally different atmosphere.
Hundreds of people had left the countryside and fled to PP. There was no accommodation so the football field was covered with makeshift shelters. The people transmitted a feeling of constant fear...little groups talking in hushed voices, looking around and behind them as they walked to the market.Evening was worse. The usual chatter and social interactions that mark the end of a day in Asia were absent. I rented a car driven by a middle aged man as I wanted to visit an off-the-guide-book little Temple. It was 40.km from PP but there was only a rough track. We stopped for lunch at a noodle place where many men were watching a TV set. The driver had been listening avidly to the radio all morning and now told me that it was a trial of a group of KR senior officials who had brought much suffering to his family, details followed.
When I said "They should hang them all!" he shook his head saying,"then the killing would never stop.We are all Cambodians and have to let go of the killing and the bad things that have happened and learn to live peacefully with each other. Every country has its bad times, we are looking forward not back otherwise we would never survive.
As we drove back to PP I thought about what he had said, and remembered those haunted eyes of the women at the football field.
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