Hamill continues quest for justice for slain brother

Rob Hamill lost his brother to the Khmer Rouge death camps. Photo / Rhys Palmer

Thursday Apr 7, 2011
NZPA

"If the ECCC drop Case 003/004 this would be equally unacceptable."

Former Olympic rower Rob Hamill takes a step closer in his quest for justice for his murdered brother Kerry tomorrow.

Kerry Hamill ended up in a Cambodian prison when the yacht he and friends were sailing strayed into Cambodian waters on August 13, 1978.

One crewman, Canadian Stuart Glass, was shot while Mr Hamill and Briton John Dewhirst were taken for interrogation and torture for two months before being killed by the Khmer Rouge regime.

Tomorrow Hamill plans to lodge an application to become a civil party in Case 003/004 against Khmer Rouge commanders Meas Muth and Sou Met, two of the five individuals believed to be under investigation by the United Nations personnel at the Office of Co-Investigating Judges of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).

His Civil Party application will be only the second to be submitted to the ECCC for the case, the first being from Cambodian human rights activist and Khmer Rouge survivor Ms Theary Seng on Monday.

Hamill holds the pair personally, individually, and criminally responsible for the death of his brother, for their roles as military commanders who contributed to the common purpose and design in the arrests and executions specifically in their respective divisions and generally for the whole of Cambodia, and who also controlled the Navy and Air Force of Democratic Kampuchea, respectively.

Meas Muth was commander of the Khmer Rouge navy which played a pivotal role in the capture of Kerry Hamill, who was taken to Toul Sleng prison in Phnom Penh, where he was tortured, forced to sign a confession that he was a CIA operative, then executed. "Both Meas Muth and Sou Met knew of and contributed countless victims to Toul Sleng prison," Hamill said.

Between April 17, 1975, and January 6, 1979, more than 1.7 million people were murdered, starved or worked to death during the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime, yet to date only one person has stood trial for the atrocities.

On July 26 last year Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch) was sentenced to 35 years in prison for his role as commandant of S21 (aka Toul Sleng).

The ECCC is close to beginning Case 002, the trial of the four highest ranking surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime - Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan and Ieng Thirith.

However, Hamill said investigations into Case 003/004 of five unnamed individuals who operated in the high echelons of the Khmer Rouge regime was sitting in limbo largely due to overt political interference and UN lethargy.

"One of my concerns lies in the fact that Case 003 and 004 appears to be dormant. In fact, there is growing information suggesting the imminent dropping of the case.

"For me and my family this is not good enough.

"It harks back to the post Khmer Rouge cold war politics of the time. In the late 1970s through to the mid 1980s many countries still recognised the Khmer Rouge leadership at the UN.

"This included the National Party-led government of the time here in New Zealand that still acknowledged Pol Pot's regime at the UN."

Hamill said that at the time his father, Miles Hamill, wrote many letters to the Government.

"In one letter to the Prime Minister he wrote `Mr Muldoon Sir, if you can faintly understand the shock and grief I and my family are suffering over this ghastly affair, then you will surely do all in your power as the Head of New Zealand's governing body to investigate my son's death'.

"He went onto ask `Why has New Zealand ever recognised the Pol Pot regime in Kampuchea? To recognise must surely mean to condone their actions as a government?'," Hamill said.

Hamill said recognition of the Pol Pot regime at that time was politically driven and was totally unacceptable to his father.

"If the ECCC drop Case 003/004 this would be equally unacceptable."