Closing Order of Case 002 against Senior KR Leaders Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith

In light of the HISTORIC (!) start of MOST COMPLEX (sic!) trial hearings beginning on 27 June 2011 and again ANOTHER HISTORIC (!) START of this same MOST COMPLEX (sic!) on 21 Nov. 2011 of Case 002 against the surviving Khmer Rouge senior leaders Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, KI Media is posting installations of the public document of the Closing Order of Case 002.  The Closing Order of the Co-Investigating Judges forms the basic document from which all the parties (Co-Prosecutors, Co-Lead Lawyers for all civil parties, Defense Lawyers) will be making their arguments before the Trial Chamber judges (one Cambodian President, 2 Cambodian Judges, 2 UN judges).  Up until now, the hearings involving these four surviving senior Khmer Rouge leaders have been in the Pre-Trial Chamber over issues of pre-trial detention and jurisdictional issues.  Beginning in June 2011, the Trial Chamber will hear the substantive (sic!) arguments over the criminal charges (e.g. genocide, crimes against humanity, penal code of 1956 - sic!).  Available in Khmer and French. Contact the ECCC for a free copy. 

 

CLOSING ORDER

of Co-Investigating Judges You Bunleng and Marcel Lemonde

15 September 2010

 

Prey Damrei Srot Security Centre

Interrogation

545. Some of the prisoners were interrogated during their detention at Prey Damrei Srot.

Prisoners were interrogated on allegations of being enemies such as CIA or KGB, former officials of the Khmer Republic regime, moral offenders or of being connected to the Vietnamese.²³⁶⁵ Some of the detainees interrogated were not subjected to any mistreatment.²³⁶⁶ However, both former detainees and guards attest that the prisoners were seriously mistreated during interrogation; they were beaten with clubs and whips, they were suffocated with plastic bags until unconscious; or they had their nails pulled out and their fingers broken.²³⁶⁷ Some died during interrogation as a result of this mistreatment.²³⁶⁸

Disappearances and Executions

546.                  Prisoners were blindfolded and taken away at night with their arms tied behind their backs, in effect disappearing.²³⁶⁹ The fate of prisoners who disappeared was hidden by several means including offering vague explanations such as telling the victim to go "to see

Angkar", to study or to go back home. According to one witness, guards never talked about the killings in front of the prisoners and made people dig pits without telling that they would be used as graves.²³⁷³

547.                  Orders to kill prisoners came from the chairman or from the other three cadres in the Prey Damrei Srot leadership.²³⁷⁴ It appears that the leadership of the prison not only ordered but also carried out executions themselves on several occasions.²³⁷⁵ A former guard who carried out executions attests that all serious offence prisoners had to be killed; as for light prisoners, it depended on whether they could be reeducated or not.²³⁷⁶

548.                  Some witnesses recall observing executions and seeing dead bodies in grave pits.²³⁷⁷ Detainees were struck with bamboo clubs or trunks and once dead were pushed into pits.²³⁷⁸ Executions took place close to the prison at the coconut and banana plantation and bodies were put into pits that had been dug by the prisoners during the day. After execution, some bodies were cut into two or three parts before being put into the pits to be used as fertiliser for the plantations.²³⁷⁹ A former guard who took part in the execution process states "During the period [1978] I was at the Damrei Srot Prison, I saw many burial pits, but I only dug three of them myself. Each pit held about ten to fifteen persons. I estimate there were eight to ten pits". ²³⁸⁰A villager who dug up 10 coconut trees in 1979 states that he saw corpses underneath all of them and added "there were hundreds of coconut trees and there were corpses underneath all coconut trees".²³⁸¹ According to [REDACTED], 20 prisoners were executed at Prey Damrei Srot,²³⁸² however given the entirety of the evidence described above the number was without a doubt much higher.

549.                  Finally, a former guard attests to hearing from other soldiers that female prisoners were raped by cadres before being killed.²³⁸³ [REDACTED] denied these allegations in his interview²³⁸⁴ and when prisoners were asked they stated that no rapes took place at Prey Damrei Srot.²³⁸⁵

***

550. Four (4) civil parties were declared admissible with regards to Prey Damrei Srot Security Center,²³⁸⁶ since the alleged crimes described in the application were considered as being more likely than not to be true, pursuant to Internal Rule 23 bis (4). These civil parties have provided sufficient elements tending to establish prima facie personal harm as a direct consequence of the crimes committed at Prey Damrei Srot Security Center.