Kambol (Phnom Penh, Cambodia). 19/08/2009: Portrait of Phung Ton, husband of civil party Im Thun Sunthy, taken at S-21 and shown on an ECCC screen (Photo: John Vink/ Magnum)20-08-2009
By Stéphanie Gée
Ka-set
Without exception, civil parties, who started testifying at the stand since Monday, have all prepared questions to the accused. With the same objective: to find out precisely what happened to their relatives disappeared at S-21, to end with nightmarish speculations, and to understand how their beloved ended up crushed by that killing machine. But the answers they were given by Duch were evasive or even off-topic. Wednesday August 19th, the court heard the testimonies of the wife and daughter of Professor Phung Ton, who died at S-21 and whose shadow has hung over the trial since its start. This particular case seemed to embarrass the accused, who showed great consideration for the intellectual, former university dean and professor. An Achilles’ heel in Duch that revealed cracks in his armour. However, the confrontation hoped for between the accused and the two women, who have assiduously attended the trial, day after day, did not happen.
The courage to speak, a legacy of the father
The mother was the first to share her testimony. Im Sunthy, 70 years old and retired from the Ministry of Public Transports, was the wife of Professor Phung Ton. When she arrived, Duch stood up to welcome her. It was the first time he showed such sign of respect for a witness. The civil party’s lawyer, Silke Studzinsky, launched into a protracted listing of documents and reference numbers proving the imprisonment of Phung Ton at S-21, already revealing the contents of her client’s testimony and thereby severely denting the magic of that moment.
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The courage to speak, a legacy of the father
The mother was the first to share her testimony. Im Sunthy, 70 years old and retired from the Ministry of Public Transports, was the wife of Professor Phung Ton. When she arrived, Duch stood up to welcome her. It was the first time he showed such sign of respect for a witness. The civil party’s lawyer, Silke Studzinsky, launched into a protracted listing of documents and reference numbers proving the imprisonment of Phung Ton at S-21, already revealing the contents of her client’s testimony and thereby severely denting the magic of that moment.
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2 comments:
Duch should be burns alive in publics...put tire on his neck and burns him to death!!!!
Dear Professeur,
I deem to tell you that this Duch is the real killer in S-21.
I was also in S-32 in Russei Kraing Commune, Maung Russei District, Battambang Province for one year from May 1978 to April 1979. I escaped dead by disguiding myself as a bike repairer in Phnom Penh while I was an English teacher in 1973 to 1975. But I was injured by a gun shot from the KR soldiers in the escaping way to the liberation army of the National United Front for Salvation of Kampuchea in cooperation with the Vietnamese army in May 1979 to the Battambang hospital.
I endured hardship during the reign of genocide of Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, ...
in Kandal and Battambang Provinces.
It was the worst experience in my life that I still remember every day and night.
They caused 5 million innocent Cambodians died by their mismanagement in the country ruling (1975 to 1979).
We cannot apologise them. They must be sentenced to many million years in jails.
Please accept, dear Sir, the assurances of my highest consideration.
Ly
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