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

 

Knowledge and implementation of this Policy at the Ministry of Social Affairs

1263.       Ieng Thirith participated in the implementation of this policy within her Ministry.

1264.       The reeducation of "bad-elements" and the killing of "enemies" were discussed in CPK publications⁵⁰⁶² which Ieng Thirith would have read and distributed within her Ministry.⁵⁰⁶³

1267. According to excerpts of a notebook compiling notes of meetings held at the Ministry of Social Affairs, Ieng Thirith stated in a meeting of the 17 April Hospital "The wish of our Party is that we attack enemies so that they are prevented from being able to raise their heads back up".⁵⁰⁶⁴

1268. At the meetings Ieng Thirith held with the chairpersons of the Ministry hospitals and pharmaceutical industries, she would instruct her staff to implement this policy. For example, [REDACTED], one of the 17 April Hospital former chairpersons explained, "She instructed us to: 1^st thoroughly take care of the patients; 2^nd save the medicine and avoid wasting them; 3^rd work punctually; 4^th spy on the enemy's action in hospital and be cautious about enemy who want to destroy the medicine or warehouses" ⁵⁰⁶⁵

1269. Similarly, at the larger meetings and training sessions she held with medical staff from Phnom Penh and the provinces, she also gave instructions for the implementation of this policy. According to a witness who attended one of these meetings, Ieng Thirith "announced the name of the traitors and instructed the staff not to follow the traitors".⁵⁰⁶⁶ This is confirmed by a number of other witnesses who used to work at the Ministry of Social Affairs.⁵⁰⁶⁷ For example, [REDACTED], who worked at Office K-2, attended meetings chaired by Ieng Thirith where she talked about "the arrests of senior leaders who had been accused of being traitors like Hou Yun, Hu Nim andKoy Thuon".⁵⁰⁶⁸

1270. As a result, during the time Ieng Thirith was Minister of Social Affairs, many members of the personnel of the Ministry were punitively removed on political,⁵⁰⁶⁹ disciplinary⁵⁰⁷⁰ or "moral"⁵⁰¹¹ grounds.

1271. Nhem Seam, who worked as a surgeon with Thiounn Thieun at the 17 April Hospital was sanctioned on political grounds. She asserts that she was arrested around the same time as Leng Soem Hak alias Sei (sent to S-21 in 1976 or 1977).⁵⁰⁷² She was accused of being "CIA" and "an enemy burrowing from within the Party" for having placed a scissors clamp in the abdomen of a patient during surgery.⁵⁰⁷³ She was called to study and put in a truck where she was blindfolded, and sent to a detention site she identified as Wat Sleng, a reeducation camp under the authority of Office S-71 chaired by Pang.⁵⁰⁷⁴ Upon arrival, she was given a sign where her name and details had been written and her photograph was taken. During the time of her detention, she was shackled and regularly tortured. She was asked about the "activities [she] had carried out at the hospital to destroy the Party" ⁵⁰¹⁵

1272. It seems that the sanctions on "moral" grounds were particularly strong at the Ministry of Social Affairs. A witness who used to work at Po-6 and the K-2 office⁵⁰⁷⁶ declared "They forbid the medical personnel and the patients to love another as husband and wife. If they found out, they would shoot them ... I saw that Uncle Oeun [Ien] (combatant) and the girl Sa [member of the medical staff] made love to one another in the water closet. They were seen, and both were arrested and shot to death there right away. They warned, 'Do not let the others follow their example'". At least four witnesses said that people who were accused of committing moral offenses were arrested.⁵⁰⁷⁷