 |
| Nuon Chea, aka Brother No 2, attends a hearing at the ECCC last year. Photograph: Reuters |
Tuesday, 28 August 2012
Stuart White
The Phnom Penh Post
Witness Ton Rochoem, alias Phy Phuon, continued to be a source of controversy at the Khmer Rouge tribunal yesterday, with defence teams for both co-accused Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary calling on the court to address issues with the former Khmer Rouge administrator’s testimony.
In an addendum to a previous filing calling for summary action against Minister for Foreign Affairs Hor Namhong for interference in the tribunal’s work, Nuon Chea’s defence drew a timeline linking the testimony of Phuon that Namhong was in charge of the Boeung Trabek detention facility, to Namhong’s statement to the press the next day refuting the testimony and to Phuon’s subsequent retraction of his remarks to local media.
“[Namhong’s] statement appears to have efficiently and effectively achieved one of its intended results,” the filing read, going on to argue that the court should take “summary action” against Namhong for comments amounting to governmental interference in the court.
Nuon Chea defence counsel Andrew Ianuzzi said that at a minimum the court should issue a statement condemning Namhong’s actions.
“In this instance, you have an action that had a much more tangible effect on the proceedings, and the response should be much more robust,” he said, adding that interference in court proceedings violated the Cambodian penal code. “If they take really robust steps, such as referring it to the local authorities, with the prospect of a real investigation, possible jail time, possible sanctions, possible fines – in a normal judicial system, that could act as a deterrent.”
Ieng Sary’s team also joined the scrum, taking the court’s investigators to task for interview techniques that it claimed amounted to “subterfuge.”
The team discovered that the second of Phuon’s two interviews with court investigators appeared to had been “staged … where questions and answers were prepared based on a prior unrecorded interview and then read into a recording device”.
Ieng Sary attorney Michael Karnavas called for the interpreter from Phuon’s second interview to clarify contradictions in the statements.
“We are now uncovering all sorts of irregularities, calling into question the quality and value of these statements,” Karnavas said.
Court spokesman Lars Olsen could not be reached.
5 comments:
Whore Nam Hong and Hun Nal were Vietnamese agent inside Pol Pot. It was unfortunate that Pol Pot didnt kill Hun Nal first. Now Cambodia suffer for another 33 years and 15 million Khmer suffer under the Vietnamese agents.
This is a gangaro court. I wonder how much longer before they can finish or collect more money from the international communities.
Over hundred millions of dollars was not enough. S21 and many killing fields were not enough evidence to convict the killers?
Let them go; The people of Cambodian know how to deal with them.
Please stop milk the system.
These killers did not give their victims (almost 3 million people and included their babies) in 60 seconds to justify their existence.
Why are they alive over 30 years laters?
Do you need video tapes and a written and a verbal confession too?
Please go back to Europ and America to be with your families.
Disband all these corrupted Cambodian judge and lawyers.
Please stop ask the International communities for more money. They need money for their people too.
Please stop dragging these killers cases.
Enough is enough. Your people always expresses the "criminal rights". What about the 3 millions right of the victims who laying in so many unmarked grave sites.
The murderer's in this case will slowly die one-by-one due to old age.
This case were meant to dragged on so that these murderer's will not spent a day in jail.
Who benefits from this? Everyone involved in the trial except the victims family.
So, while we wait for more donor to present itself, those who pocketed the money is now on a temporary vacation. Courtesy of donor expense.
Post a Comment