Trial starts of Khmer Rouge leaders

  Nuon Chea, the Khmer Rouge's chief ideologue, showed no emotion as the short clip of him, dating from 2001 or later, was shown on the second day of opening statements in the trial at the UN-backed court in Phnom Penh.

International co-prosecutor Andrew Cayley told the court that Nuon Chea and his two co-defendants were “thieves of time” and “common murderers” of a whole generation of Cambodians.

“Brother Number Two” Nuon Chea, former head of state Khieu Samphan and ex-Foreign Minister Ieng Sary all deny charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide for the deaths of up to two million people during the Khmer Rouge’s 1975-79 reign of terror.

“The accused who are before you are thieves of time and common murderers of an entire generation of Cambodians. They robbed decades of development and prosperity from this country,” International co-prosecutor Andrew Cayley. “No one in this country is left unhurt or unaffected by what these three elderly men have done.” 

 Prosecutors showed the packed court the footage of Nuon Chea, taken from the 2009 documentary “Enemies of the People”, to support their claim that the movement had a policy of killing enemies and those it regarded as disloyal.

“If these traitors were alive, the Khmers as a people would have been finished so I dare to suggest our decision was the right one,” Nuon Chea calmly tells a Cambodian journalist in the clip.“If we had shown mercy to the people, the nation would have been lost.”

The footage was shot at some point between 2001 – when the journalist began interviewing Nuon Chea – and the former top regime leader’s arrest in 2007.

Mr Cayley spoke of mass killings of Vietnamese and Cham Muslims, saying that regime leaders had “a systematic plan of genocide” for them, and of the “smashing” of perceived enemies at detention centres across the country.
The defendants knew about and participated in five main accusations against them, Mr Cayley said, including forced evacuations into rural areas, enslavement of the population in labour camps and the widespread practice of forced marriages.

Missing from the courtroom is the fourth accused, Ieng Thirith – the regime’s “First Lady” and the only female leader to be charged by the court – after she was ruled unfit for trial last week because she has dementia.
Nuon Chea was put in the spotlight again when Mr Cayley showed footage of a 2009 court tirade by Ieng Thirith in which she blamed Pol Pot’s right-hand man for having her students “executed” and said everything “was done by Nuon Chea”.
Owing to fears that not all of the accused, who are in their 80s and suffer from various medical ailments, will live to see a verdict, the court recently split their complex case into a series of smaller trials. But during opening statements the prosecution and the defence may address all of the accusations against the three.

Hmm Here's looking forwatd to these three not only surviving their trials but living long enough for a good stretch in prison.

Comrade Duch gets 35 years

According to the Guardian Comrade Duch has been sentenced to 35 years in prison by a UN-backed war crimes tribunal in Cambodia. The sentence was the first verdict involving a leader of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime.

Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, listened impassively as the chief judge read out the verdict, convicting him of crimes against humanity and war crimes. He will serve only 19 years of the sentence, because Judge Nil Nonn said the court would shave off the 11 years he has already spent in detention and five more for being illegally detained in a military court.

Duch, 67, had faced a maximum sentence of life in prison, and many victims and their relatives watching the verdict were angry that his sentence was not more severe. Some of them broke down in tears.

Duch admitted to heading Toul Sleng, a top secret detention centre in Phnom Penh for the worst "enemies" of the state. More than 16,000 people passed through its gates before they were killed. Torture used to extract confessions included pulling out prisoners' toenails, administering electric shocks and waterboarding.

"I can't accept this," said Saodi Ouch, 46, echoing what many Cambodians would see as a light sentence. She was weeping so hard she could hardly talk. "My family died … my older sister, my older brother. I'm the only one left."

An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died from starvation, medical neglect, slave-like working conditions and execution under the Khmer Rouge’s insane regime. Although the leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998 four other top members of the Khmer Rouge are awaiting trial.

A former maths teacher, Duch joined the Khmer Rouge in 1967. Ten years later, he was the trusted head of its ultimate killing machine, S-21, which became the code name for Tuol Sleng. Only 14 prisoners are thought to have survived ordeals at the prison that included medieval-like tortures, followed by executions and burials outside Phnom Penh.

Although an effective 19 year sentence does not sound much for such appalling crimes, it should mean that Duch will die in prison in a way that his victims did not. That Duch has expressed remorse for his crimes should make the sentence meaningful. Now off to prison and die in misery you evil bastard!

Meanwhile in Phnom Penh Comrade Duch stands trial

Vann Nath, Tuol Sleng survior, now one of Cambodia's foremost artists.

The trial of Kaing Guek Eav (aka comrade Duch) the commandert of the Khmer Rouge murder centre Toul Sleng or S21 is underway in Cambodia (which apparently and appropriately means Hill of poisonous trees in Khmer). On Monday there were numerous reports of the testimony of Vann Nath, one of the seven people believed to have survived imprisonment inside that evil place.

Vann Nath described how hunger had driven him to eat insects, and said he had also eaten the food beside corpses of starved fellow prisoners. "The conditions were so inhumane and the food was so little," he told the tribunal, as he broke down in tears. "I even thought eating human flesh would be a good meal."

He said he was fed twice a day, but each meal only consisted of three teaspoons of rice porridge. "We were so hungry, we would eat insects that dropped from the ceiling," he said. "We ate our meals next to dead bodies, and we didn't care because we were like animals."

He described how prisoners were kept shackled - 20 or 30 of them together - and ordered not to speak or move.

Vann Nath survived due to his skills as a painter. He was forced to produce portraits of Khmer Rouge leaders - on pain of death. "I thought that if I could do good pictures and they were satisfied with what I painted, they would be happy and I would survive,"

Van Nath's portraits passed muster - and he has since become one of Cambodia's most famous artists, and his work often depicts scenes from Tuol Sleng.

Comrade Duch has admitted responsibility for his role as governor of the jail, and begged forgiveness from his victims. At least his long overdue punishment, when it comes, will have some meaning.

Trial of Khmer Rouge butcher starts at last

The Guardian carries a report about the opening (at last) of the first trial of a key Khmer Rouge butcher. Kaing Guek Eav, 66, better known as Duch, sat in the dock behind a bullet-proof screen in a court that was purpose-built to house the UN-backed genocide trial.

Duch was the Khmer Rouge regime’s head torturer in a regime that left 1.7 million Cambodians dead.. He is accused of war crimes crimes against humanity for his role in the deaths of at least 12,380 prisoners at Phnom Penh's notorious Tuol Sleng torture centre. Duch, a born-again Christian who has acknowledged his crimes, sat impassively in the court. Wearing a pale blue shirt, he occasionally sipped water and donned his reading glasses to take notes of the proceedings translated through his headphones.

Van Nath, 63, one of only a handful of survivors to emerge from Tuol Sleng, took his place in the queue to witness a day he long remained sceptical he would ever see."This is the day we have waited for for 30 years," said the artist, who was beaten by Tuol Sleng guards but spared because of his painting talent. "But I don't know if it will end my suffering."

Duch is the first of five defendants to appear before the long-delayed tribunal. Although he has made no formal confession, he has, unlike the other defendants, "admitted or acknowledged" that many of the crimes occurred at his prison, according to the indictment from court judges. He has also asked for forgiveness from his victims.

In an indictment in August the tribunal said: "Duch necessarily decided how long a prisoner would live, since he ordered their execution based on a personal determination of whether a prisoner had fully confessed" to being an enemy of the regime. In one mass execution, he gave his men a "kill them all" order to dispose of a group of prisoners. On another list of 29 prisoners, he told his henchmen to "interrogate four persons, kill the rest".

After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Duch disappeared for two decades, living under two other names and as a converted Christian before he was located by a British journalist in 1999.

Taken to the scene of his alleged crimes last year, he wept and told some of his former victims: "I ask for your forgiveness. I know that you cannot forgive me, but I ask you to leave me the hope that you might." I put up a post about this last year called the The Tears of Comrade Duch.

His defence lawyer, Francois Roux, said today that his client had been in detention for nine years, nine months and seven days, adding: "This situation is unacceptable." (Duch’s victims spent a much shorter time in detention of course....)

The other four facing trial are Khieu Samphan, the group's former head of state; Ieng Sary, its foreign minister; his wife, Ieng Thirith, who was minister for social affairs; and Nuon Chea, the movement's chief ideologue.

My gut says tear the piece of human garbage limb from limb very slowly. My head as ever wishes him a long, miserable and very uncomfortable incarceration.

The tears of Comrade Duch

I have already posted twice about Comrade Duch (aka Kang Guek Eav or, Kang Khek Ieu. Click here and here for my earlier posts) , who is standing trial for his role in the Khmer Rouge regime. Duch himself played a major part in this atrocity as head of Tuol Sleng prison – only Twelve out of over 20,000 souls who entered the prison came out alive. Only four of these are still alive today.

Two days ago he was taken back to the Killing Fields where between one and two million Cambodians were butchered and buried in mass graves between 1975 and 1979. "It was emotional, of course, and very quiet," said Reach Sambath, a spokesman for the tribunal that is hearing Duch’s case "Everyone was very quiet."

The best-known site of mass graves, littered with bones and pieces of ripped clothing, is Choeung Ek, about 10 miles south of Phnom Penh. Duch, a born-again Christian, was taken there in a heavily guarded convoy with up to 80 tribunal staff, judges, lawyers and four witnesses who served as Khmer Rouge guards at Tuol Sleng."The four witnesses explained what had happened in front of the accused, Duch," said Mr Sambath, who said he was not permitted to reveal details of the testimony. "He also explained what had happened there as well. Everything was recorded."

After the testimony had been given Duch broke down, first as he passed a tree bearing a sign that said babies' heads were smashed against its trunk, and second, as he made his way back to his car and stopped at a Buddhist stupa that contains the skulls of more than 8,000 of the Khmer Rouge's victims. "He kneeled on the ground and paid his respects and prayed for the souls of those who were killed," said Mr Sambath. "He cried ... When he got to the car he also paid his respects to the skulls behind the glass. He also knelt on the ground and prayed."

I don’t know whether his contrition is sincere or not. Personally I hope it is as his certain inevitable punishment will be more meaningful than if he had continued to justify his behaviour. It is scant comfort to the victims of such a monstrous regime

The trial of Duch is scheduled to begin in July.

Khmer Rouge head torturer stands trial

The genocide tribunal in Cambodia staged its first historic hearing yesterday when Kaing Guek Eav (aka Duch), the head of the butchering regime's Toul Sleng torture centre, appeared before the panel of judges, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The first hearing of the war crimes tribunal gives millions hope that the Khmer Rouge's senior leaders will finally face justice and provide answers as to why "Cambodians killed Cambodians". In the tribunal's so-called "pre-trial chamber" Duch was watched by a handful of journalists and members of the public. The atmosphere crackled as everyone craned to see the former maths teacher, who was in charge of a prison where 14,000 men, women and children died.

He stood before the panel of robed judges - three Cambodian and two international - bowed slightly and held his palms together in a gesture of respect. "My name is Kaing Guek Eav," he said. "I am 66 years old." Lawyers for Duch argued that their client should be given bail until his trial, due to begin in the middle of next year, as he has been held in custody for eight years without trial, which they said breached Cambodian and international law. But descriptions of the crimes committed on his orders at Toul Sleng prison were also detailed: the people allowed to bleed to death, victims whose toe-nails were pulled out, or those put in pits that filled with water until they drowned. Prosecutors argue that his freedom could stir anger and unrest and fear he might flee justice, and observers believe it highly unlikely the tribunal will grant him bail after refusing an earlier application.

Duch, who became a born-again Christian, was seized on May 10 1999, after confessing and expressing remorse to British photojournalist, Nic Dunlop, who spent years tracking him down. He claimed he acted on Pol Pot's orders. He was transferred into the custody of the £23m war crimes tribunal and charged in July when the rules governing the hearings were finally settled after tortuous talks between Cambodia and the UN. The landmark hearing brought a crumb of comfort to some of those who crowded into the courtroom to witness the day they have long awaited but feared would never come.

"[Duch] should acknowledge his guilt," said a villager, Chhouek Sao, 55, who lost five members of his family to the Khmer Rouge. It's obvious that justice has been delayed and some people are so frustrated by waiting for so long. We victims of the Khmer Rouge absolutely want Duch to be kept in jail forever because he killed so many people."

I wish Duch a long, lucid life so that he can reflect on his terrible crimes. He is a man with a lot of justice coming his way and a hell of a lot to repent.