Five former KRouge claim innocence in trial for killing Briton

Friday, October 03, 2008

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Five former Khmer Rouge fighters told a Cambodian court Friday they were innocent of the 1996 kidnapping and killing of a British mine clearer and his translator.

The former guerrillas appeared in blue prison uniforms at Phnom Penh Municipal Court to answer charges of premeditated murder and illegal confinement, and could face life in prison if convicted.

They stand accused of shooting Christopher Howes and translator Huon Huot a few days after seizing the pair and other members of their mine clearance team near the famed Angkor Wat temples in northwest Cambodia.

All five suspects -- Khem Ngun, Puth Lim, Sin Dorn, Loch Mao, and Cheap Chet -- were arrested over the past year, nearly a decade after a joint investigation into the incident by British and Cambodian police.

Khem Ngun, who served under notorious Khmer Rouge commander Ta Mok, was allegedly the one who ordered the fighters under his control to shoot Howes and Huon Huot.

But Khem Ngun claimed the order to kill the prisoners came from deceased Khmer Rouge commander Khem Tem and was carried out by a soldier named Rin.

"Another Khmer Rouge soldier close to Ta Mok ordered the shooting of Howes in the head, and then I turned my face away and felt shock," Khem Ngun told the court.

Khem Ngun was serving as a major general in the Cambodian military when he was arrested in November last year. The other suspects had become civil servants.

At the time of the killings, the communist Khmer Rouge were battling government troops in the final years of Cambodia's drawn-out civil war.

Howes, 37, refused a chance to leave his kidnapped team of 20 mine clearers from the Britain-based Mines Advisory Group to retrieve a ransom.

While the rest of the team was eventually released, Howes and Huon Huot were taken deeper into rebel-held territory and killed.

Their remains were found in 1998, the same year Cambodia's civil war ended when the Khmer Rouge movement disintegrated.

The verdict would be announced October 14, said presiding judge Iu Kim Sri.

Cambodia is littered with millions of land mines and other unexploded ordnance from nearly three decades of conflict.

Third Khmer Rouge suspect charged in the killing of British mine clearer

Thursday, November 15, 2007
The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Authorities have arrested a third former Khmer Rouge soldier for his alleged role in the killing of a British mine clearance expert and his Cambodian interpreter 11 years ago, officials said Thursday.

The arrest of Cheap Chet, 33, came after two other ex-Khmer Rouge soldiers were detained Tuesday in connection with the 1996 killing of Briton Christopher Howes and his interpreter Huon Huot.

All three were charged with premeditated murder, said Ke Sakhan, a Phnom Penh Municipal Court investigating judge. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The two other soldiers — Khem Ngun and Loch Mao — were also charged with illegal confinement, which carries a 10-year sentence.

Khem Ngun defected to the government in 1998 and was awarded the rank of major general in the Cambodian army. Loch Mao became a local government official after leaving the Khmer Rouge, which collapsed in 1998.

Howes, of Bristol, England, and a group of his Cambodian co-workers were abducted in March 1996 by Khmer Rouge guerrillas while clearing mines in an isolated area about 17 kilometers (10 miles) north of the Angkor Wat temple, the country's most popular tourist destination.

Howes, who was 37 at the time, persuaded the guerrillas to free his colleagues while he and Huon Huot remained hostages for ransom.

Their fate was unknown until a team of detectives from Scotland Yard said about two years later that they had firm evidence the two had been taken to the Khmer Rouge stronghold of Anlong Veng and killed soon after their abduction.

Witnesses said Khem Ngun had given the order to kill Howes.

However, the Cambodian government was unwilling to arrest him, apparently for fear of losing the trust of Khmer Rouge guerrillas who were then in the process of defecting.

Reacting to the news of the arrests Wednesday, Howes' 80-year-old father, Roy Howes, said he was pleased, not only for himself and the interpreter's family, but also "for the people of Cambodia."

"These people have wrecked my family," he told The Associated Press from his home in Backwell, England. "We have never, ever recovered from this. The pain is permanently with us."