Khmer Rouge killers 'burned Briton alive': How John Dewhirst may have met a brutal end at hands of Pol Pot's regime

05th August 2009
By Richard Shears
Daily Mail (UK)

A Briton held in a Cambodian torture camp may have been burned alive, a war crimes trial heard today.

John Dewhirst, 26, was on a sailing trip in 1978 with an American, an Australian, a New Zealander and a Canadian when their yacht was intercepted by the Khmer Rouge.

The Canadian, Stuart Glass, was shot dead. Mr Dewhirst and the other men were interrogated at the notorious S-21 prison in Cambodian capital Phnom Penh then killed. Exactly how they met their end has never been known.

But Cheam Soeu, 52, then a guard at the camp, told how he saw colleagues lead one of the men out on the street one night, sit him down, then put a car tyre over him.

Speaking at the trial of notorious prison commander Kaing Guek Eav, he said they then set the tyre and the body on fire, adding: 'I saw the charred torso and black burned legs.'

Mr Dewhirst had been in the Gulf of Thailand with his friends when they drifted near the Cambodian coast.

It had always been assumed the teacher from Newcastle, who was accused of being a spy, was then tortured and shot, as countless other prisoners of Pol Pot's ruthless communist regime had been.

Earlier this year, the commander of the S-21 prison, Kaing Guek Eav - also known as Duch - told the tribunal that it was Pol Pot, who died in 1998, who personally ordered that the four Westerners be executed and then burned.

'I received an order from my superiors that the four Westerners had to be smashed and burned to ashes,' he said. 'It was an absolute order from my superiors. Pol Pot, not Uncle Nuon' - the regime's second in command - 'personally ordered to burn the bodies.'

But Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, yesterday denied the story, claiming he ordered the four to be killed before being burned.

'It's hard for me to believe that the prisoner was burned alive,' he said.

'I believe nobody would dare to violate my order. They had to be killed and then burned to ash.'

Khmer Rouge torture victim was starved to the point he 'dreamed about eating human flesh'

Duch is the first senior regime member to stand trial at the UN-assisted tribunal in Phnom Penh.

Prisoners in the notorious prison would be tortured with beatings and electric shocks, interrogated and then shot, their bodies dumped in what became known as the killing fields. Many of those executed were burned.

Before his capture and execution, Mr Dewhirst was on a dream voyage with his friends cruising the Gulf of Thailand.

Then they were captured at gunpoint by a Khmer Rouge gunboat when they strayed too close to the Cambodian coast and were accused of being spies.

Mr Dewhirst was forced to make a signed confession that he was a CIA agent, having been recruited by his father at the age of 12.

His father, he was forced to erroneously claim, was a CIA agent whose cover was that of a secondary school headmaster.

In signing the confession, he had also signed his own death warrant.

The only Briton to die in the killing fields, Mr Dewhirst was executed just a few weeks before Pol Pot's regime was overthrown by invading forces from Vietnam.

Kaing Guek Eav has told the U.N.-backed genocide tribunal that he wanted to apologise for his actions under the Khmer Rouge, whose radical policies while in power from 1975 to 1979 left an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians dead.

The hearing began in February.

Duch Ordered Western Prisoners Burned Alive

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
05 August 2009

Former Tuol Sleng security guard Chheam Soeur told the UN-backed court on Wednesday that Duch had ordered his subordinates to burn alive a Western prisoner in his infamous Khmer Rouge torture center.

Chheam Soeur said he watched three security guards bring the prisoner into the prison courtyard, place vehicle tires over him, and set them alight.

He said he didn’t know the identity of the prisoner. Duch, who is facing numerous atrocity crimes charges, told the court Wednesday he ordered a subordinate to kill two Western prisoners by tire-burning.

Chheam Soeur’s testimony came as Prime Minister heaped praise on the court’s Cambodian officials, saying Wednesday said he “admired” Cambodian judges, prosecutors and lawyers, who worked “better and smarter” than the international side.

The prime minister said he had been watching the hearing for jailed prison chief Duch and had noted that some international judges asked Duch questions but didn’t seem to understand the whole story.

Sometimes, he said, Duch made counter-accusations against the judges. Hun Sen was delivering a speech to students graduating the National Institute of Education’s Build Bright University.

Meanwhile, the Victims Unit of the tribunal reported Wednesday it had received more than 4,000 complaints from potential witnesses and civil parties to the proceedings against all five leaders in the court’s custody, tribunal officials said Wednesday.

Helen Jarvis, the new director of the unit, told reporters Wednesday that 94 of those complaints represented civil parties against Duch’s Case, and 103 of them would be used in Case No. 002 at the court, the case against the four senior-most leaders in custody: ideologue Nuon Chea, former president Khieu Samphan, foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith.

Khmer Rouge court told how Westerner burned alive

A photographer takes pictures of Cheam Soeu, 52, the former guard of the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison, known Tuol Sleng genocide museum, on a screen at the court press center of the U.N.-backed tribunal while Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch is on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

August 5th, 2009
Sopheng Cheang

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A former security guard at the Khmer Rouge’s most notorious prison told a tribunal Wednesday he watched as a Western prisoner was burned alive.

But the head of the prison — the first senior Khmer Rouge figure to face trial in the U.N.-assisted tribunal — denied it.

“It’s hard for me to believe that the prisoner was burned alive. I believe that nobody would dare to violate my order,” Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, told the court. “They had to be killed and then burned to ash.”

Up to 16,000 people were tortured under Duch’s command at S-21 prison and later were taken away to be killed during the Khmer Rouge’s 1975-1979 rule of Cambodia. Only a handful survived.

Cheam Soeu, now 52, told the court he was a youth when he joined the Khmer Rouge and helped the communist regime take power. He spent two years as a guard at S-21, where four Westerners were among the prisoners.

The Westerners included an American, an Australian, a New Zealander and a Briton, who were captured on their yacht while sailing in Cambodian waters.

Cheam Soeu told the court he was on guard outside the prison late one evening and watched as one of the Westerners — he does not know which — was led by three security guards to the street.

“The prisoner was still alive. They asked him to sit down, and they put a car tire over his body,” Cheam Soeu testified. He said guards then set the body on fire. “I saw the charred torso of the body and black burned legs.”

Cheam Soeu said he constantly feared that if he did something wrong he would face the same fate.

Some 1.7 million Cambodians died of torture, summary executions, disease and starvation during the Khmer Rouge’s rule, during which the Maoist ideologues emptied cities and forced virtually the entire population to work on farm collectives.

Duch (pronounced DOIK) testified previously that he carried out orders from the regime’s late leader Pol Pot to kill the four Westerners and then burn their corpses. Prison records suggest there may have been as many as 11 Western prisoners.

Duch, 66, is the only senior Khmer Rouge figure to acknowledge responsibility for his actions. He is charged with crimes against humanity and is the first of five defendants scheduled for long-delayed trials.

Senior leaders Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary and Ieng Sary’s wife, Ieng Thirith, are detained and are scheduled to face trial in the next year or two.