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 (or, Indictment). The Closing Order of the Co-Investigating Judges forms the basic document from which all the parties (co-prosecutors, lead co-lawyers for all civil parties, defense lawyers) make 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 November 2011, the Trial Chamber is hearing the substantive (sic!) arguments over the criminal charges   (genocide against Buddhists, genocide against Vietnamese, genocide against Cham Muslims, crimes against humanity at the 200 prisons, mass crimes in countless killing fields, Eastern Zone purges, penal code of 1956, etc.) of only the Phase I Movement in April 1975.

 
 Available in Khmer, English and French. Contact the ECCC for a free copy.  

 

CLOSING ORDER (or, INDICTMENT)

 

of Co-Investigating Judges You Bunleng and Marcel Lemonde

15 September 2010

 

IX. ROLES OF THE CHARGED PERSONS

 

D. IENG THIRITH

Participation in the Common Purpose

Security centres and execution sites

East Zone Purges

1233.       In 1978, Ieng Thirith participated in the removal of ex-East Zone people employed by the Ministry of Social Affairs. A number of them were sent to reeducation camps or worksites.⁵⁰³⁶ Ieng Thirith ordered some of these removals, in particular at Po-4 Hospital (later Po-6 or 6 January Hospital) and Ph-2.⁵⁰³⁷

1234.        [REDACTED], who was the chairwoman of Po-4 Hospital for three months in early 1978, asserted that the removal of people from the East Zone from the hospital was done following the order of the hierarchy, in this case Ieng Thirith, "after Sao Phim had been accused of being a traitor. Sometimes Ieng Thirith told me directly about this matter" This witness added "I did not know where Ieng Thirith got that order from [but] she instructed me and subordinate units to do so. She also said that Eastern Zone had betrayed".⁵⁰³⁹ According to this witness these people were never seen again and might have been killed.⁵⁰⁴⁰

1235.       In Ph-2, witnesses explained that hundreds of staff members were removed and subsequently replaced before and around 1978 because of their connection to Sao Phim, the Vietnamese, or the East Zone.⁵⁰⁴¹ [REDACTED], a former committee member of Ph-2 said "in one evening there were many boats coming to take the old workers to work at other places and at the same time the new workers were sent in to take their places ".⁵⁰⁴² [REDACTED] who was sent along with hundreds of others to replace the workers removed from Ph-2 in early 1978 confirms "all of the former staff of some 100 members mostly from the East Zone were sent out by boat".⁵⁰⁴³

1236.       According to [REDACTED], a Ph-2 former chairman appointed by Ieng Thirith in 1976, the removal of Ph-2 staff was ordered by Ieng Thirith.⁵⁰⁴⁴ He explained "sometimes after the (monthly) meeting at the Ministry of Social Affairs, Ieng Thirith gave [me] a list of persons to be removed, or sometimes the messenger from the Ministry of Social Affairs delivered to me a list of those to be removed. I then told those whose names were in the list to go to the Ministry of Social Affairs, and those persons never returned" ⁵⁰⁴⁵

1237.        [REDACTED] also explained that in late 1977, Ieng Thirith informed him directly that he was to be removed from Ph-2 to another place. Further to that, a boat came to pick him up and he was sent to K-7 where he was joined by his wife and two children. He and his family were then taken to a reeducation camp.⁵⁰⁴⁶ Asked about the reasons of these removals and disappearances, this witness states that it was "because those people came from the East Zone and had been trained by the Vietnamese" ⁵⁰⁴¹ He also said that this "did not mean that [she] had the power to change those staffs, but she carried out the order from the upper echelon".5048

1258. [REDACTED], who was assigned to work at Ph-2 in early 1978, explained that the night following his arrival, all the former staff - about 100 people mostly from the East Zone - were sent away by boat. He also asserts that he was once requested by [REDACTED], Ieng Thirith's daughter and chairwoman of Ph-2, to bring a person named Vet to K-7. He heard that K-7 was a site where prisoners were received before being distributed to other places. This was confirmed by Vet, whom he met again after the end of the regime. Vet told him that after two or three nights at K-7, he had been sent to Prek Kdam where he almost died.⁵⁰⁴⁹

1259. The locations to which these people were sent included Prek Kdam,⁵⁰⁵⁰ the Centre State Salt Fields,⁵⁰⁵¹ and Wat Chey Utdam,⁵⁰⁵² a reeducation camp under the authority of Office S-71 chaired by Pang, to which persons perceived as "traitors" were sent.⁵⁰⁵³

Knowledge and Implementation of this Policy Nationwide

1260. While there is no evidence that Ieng Thirith personally visited any security centres or execution sites, she knew that internal and external enemies of the CPK were being identified and killed through her position as Minister of Social Affairs; her associations with other CPK leaders; her knowledge of and involvement in S-21; and her participation in meetings attended by zone secretaries, sectors secretaries and military cadres.

1261. On 30 August 1977, Ieng Thirith attended a banquet to honour a delegation from Burma, where Ieng Sary made a speech which discussed this policy, "During the past 8 months our Cambodian people and the Revolutionary Army have striven seethingly and arduously ... to successfully defend and protect our national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as the fruits of the revolution and the people's state administration of equality and justice by smashing all maneuvers of enemies of all stripes" ⁵⁰⁵⁴

1262. At different times, Ieng Thirith has admitted that she was aware of the killing of enemies during the CPK regime. In an interview in 1980, she explains that the arrest and subsequent execution Ruos Nhim (Northwest Zone Secretary and member of the Standing Committee) and the suicide of Sao Phim (East Zone Secretary and member of the Standing Committee) in June 1978 occurred as a result of her report on the situation in the Northwest to Pol Pot. In light of that report, an inquiry was made and it was found that Sao Phim was a Vietnamese agent and that Ruos Nhim was in collusion with Sao Phim.⁵⁰⁵⁵ In the same interview she claimed that "agents were infiltrated in our ranks including high ranks".⁵⁰⁵⁶ In 1991, in another interview with a journalist from the French newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur, she recognized that "there were certainly excesses like in every revolution" and that "alleged purges against alleged traitors possibly occurred" in the DK era "but not a genocide" ⁵⁰⁵¹

1263.       At least since October 1975, Ieng Thirith was aware of the CPK policy to recall and reeducate overseas based Cambodians to Cambodia through her diplomatic role,⁵⁰⁵⁸ family connections, and her associations with other CPK leaders, in particular with her husband Ieng Sary. She discussed this matter with one of the cadres of her Ministry⁵⁰⁵⁹ and some of these returnees were eventually sent to work at the Ministry of Social Affairs after their

reeducation.⁵⁰⁶⁰

1264.       Ieng Thirith was also aware of the arrests of Vietnamese soldiers, since their confessions were recorded for propaganda purposes and broadcast on the radio.⁵⁰⁶¹