Showing posts with label Duch trial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Duch trial. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Friday, September 02, 2011
Letter of Judge Kong Srim to Ksaem Ksan on Time Schedule of DUCH Verdict Appeal
ជម្រាបជូនដំណឹង
សមាជិក សមាជិកា នៃសមាគម ក្សេមក្សាន្ត និងសារធារណៈជន
កាលពីថ្ងៃទី 31 ខែ សីហា ឆ្នាំ 2011 លោកចៅក្រម គង់ ស្រ៊ីម បានឆ្លើយតប មកសមាគម ក្សេមក្សាន្ត តាមរយៈលិខិត ដូចមានភ្ជាប់ជាមួយ អ៊ីម៉ែលនេះ បញ្ជាក់ពី ការប្រកាស សាលដីកា លើបណ្តឹង ឩទ្ធរណ៍ នៃសំណុរឿង ០០១ ប្រឆាំង នឹង ជនជាប់ចោទ ឌុច នៅពេល ឆាប់ៗ តាម ដែល អាចធ្វើ ទៅបាននាពេលខាងមុខ ។
សម្រាប់ ព័តិ៍មាន បន្ថែម ពាក់ពន្ធ័នឹង សមាគម ក្សេមក្សាន្ត សូមចូល ទៅ កាន់ គេហទំពរ័ www.ksaemksan.info ។
ដោយ ក្តី គោរព អំពី យើងខ្ញុំ
ក្នុងនាម សមាគម ក្សេមក្សាន្ត
គឹម ម៉េងឃី មេធាវីសមាគម ក្សេមក្សាន្ត
០១៧ ៣៣ ៨១ ៥៥
----------------
Phnom Penh ,September 1st 2011
Be kindly inform
Ksaem Ksan’s members and all public
On August 31 2011, ECCC’s judge Kong Srim has responded to our Association “Ksaem Ksan” clarifying the time schedule of Duch’s appeal verdict in Case. The judge’ s letter is here attached .
For more information about Association “Ksaem Ksan”, please visit our website : www.ksaemksan.info.
Faithfully yours,
Onbehalf of Association Ksaem Ksan
KIM Mengkhy, Lawyer for Association
017 33 81 55
Monday, July 26, 2010
Civil parties pray at Tuol Sleng
Bou Meng, right, survivors of the S-21 prison in the Khmer Rouge regime, carries a wreath during a Buddhist ceremony at Tuol Sleng genocide museum, formerly the regime's notorious S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, July 25, 2010. A U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal is expected to issue a decision Monday, July 26, 2010, in Kaing Guek Eav's trial, the first verdict involving a leader of the genocidal regime that created Cambodia's killing fields. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
Hav Sophea, right, whose father was killed by the Khmer Rouge just after she was born, burns incense sticks during a Buddhist ceremony at Tuol Sleng genocide museum, formerly the regime's notorious S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, July 25, 2010. A U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal is expected to issue a decision Monday, July 26, 2010, in Kaing Guek Eav's trial, the first verdict involving a leader of the genocidal regime that created Cambodia's killing fields. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
A Cambodian woman holds a portrait of her brother, who was a prisoner at S-21 during Khmer Rouge regime, during a Buddhist ceremony at Tuol Sleng genocide museum, formerly the regime's notorious S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, July 25, 2010. A U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal is expected to issue a decision Monday, July 26, 2010, in Kaing Guek Eav's trial, the first verdict involving a leader of the genocidal regime that created Cambodia's killing fields.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
Norng Chan Phal (L), a child survivor of the Khmer Rouge, prays as his daughter looks on during a Buddhist ceremony to commemorate the victims of the Khmer Rouge at Toul Sleng museum in Phnom Penh July 25, 2010. Survivors of the Khmer Rouge's notorious Tuol Sleng prison attended the ceremony ahead of Monday's court verdict on former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, who is accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
Martine Lefeuvre (2nd L), wife of former Cambodian diplomat to Senegal Ouk Ket, her daughter Ouk Neary (3rd L), and former Olympics rower Rob Hamill (2nd R) of New Zealand offer food to monks during a Buddhist ceremony to commemorate the victims of the Khmer Rouge at Toul Sleng museum in Phnom Penh July 25, 2010. Survivors of the Khmer Rouge's notorious Tuol Sleng prison attended the ceremony ahead of Monday's court verdict on former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, who is accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture. Hamill's brother Kerry was taken to the S-21 prison where he was tortured and executed, according to New Zealand's local media. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
A Cambodian woman wipes her eye as she cries at the Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh. Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court on Monday gives its verdict on the Khmer Rouge prison chief, in a step towards justice for the "Killing Fields" atrocities more than three decades ago. (AFP/Tang Chhin Sothy) Sunday, May 17, 2009
Survivors Shed Light on Dark Days of Khmer Rouge
Chum Mey, a mechanic, was spared because he was needed to make repairs. The two men are to testify against their torturer. (Photo: Mariko Takayasu)
Bou Meng was singled out during the Khmer Rouge reign of terror in Cambodia to produce portraits of the group’s leader. (Photo: Seth Mydans/International Herald Tribune)May 17, 2009
By SETH MYDANS
New York Times
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Looking across the courtroom where he is on trial for crimes against humanity, the chief Khmer Rouge torturer cannot avoid seeing an artist and a mechanic who sit watching him but mostly avoid his gaze.
One short and forceful, his feet dangling just above the floor, the other melancholy and drooping a bit, they are rare survivors of Tuol Sleng prison, where at least 14,000 people were sent to their deaths three decades ago.
In the weeks ahead, the two survivors will take the stand to testify against their torturer, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, who commanded the prison, and both have stories to tell about a place of horror from which almost no one emerged alive.
Bou Meng, 68, the short one, survived because he was a painter and was singled out from a row of shackled prisoners to produce portraits of the Khmer Rouge chief, Pol Pot.
The other, Chum Mey, 78, was a mechanic and was spared because the torturers needed him to repair machines, including the typewriters used to record the confessions — very often false — that they extracted from prisoners like himself.
Duch (pronounced DOIK), 66, is the first of five arrested Khmer Rouge figures to go on trial in the United Nations-backed tribunal here. His case began in February and is expected to last several more months.
Mr. Bou Meng and Mr. Chum Mey are living exhibits — like a third survivor, Vann Nath — from the darkest core of the Khmer Rouge atrocities. They are tangible evidence, like the skulls that have been preserved at some killing fields, or like hundreds of portraits of their fellow prisoners that are displayed on the walls of Tuol Sleng.
The photographs were taken as detainees were delivered to the prison, before they were stripped and fettered and tortured and sent to a killing field.
Those ordered killed at Tuol Sleng are among 1.7 million people who died during the Communist Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979 from starvation, disease and overwork, as well as from torture and execution.
Duch is accused of ordering the kinds of beatings, whippings, electric shocks and removal of toenails that Mr. Bou Meng and Mr. Chum Mey describe; indeed, he admitted in the courtroom to ordering the beating of Mr. Chum Mey.
Both men endured torture that continued for days, and Mr. Chum Mey said, “At that time I wished I could die rather than survive.”
But both men did survive, and in interviews they now describe scenes that almost none of their fellow prisoners lived to recount. “Every night I looked out at the moon,” Mr. Bou Meng recalled. “I heard people crying and sighing around the building. I heard people calling out, ‘Mother, help me! Mother, help me!’ ”
It was at night that prisoners were trucked out to a killing field, and every night, he said, he feared that his moment had come. “But by midnight or 1 a.m. I realized that I would live another day.”
Though many Cambodians have tried to bury their traumatic memories, Mr. Bou Meng and Mr. Chum Mey have continued to return to the scene of their imprisonment and torture as if their souls remained trapped there together with the souls of the dead.
During the first few years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Mr. Bou Meng returned to work in an office at Tuol Sleng, which was converted into a museum of genocide. Now he uses it as a rest stop, spending the night there on a cot when he visits the capital, Phnom Penh, from the countryside, where he paints Buddhist murals in temples.
Mr. Chum Mey, retired now from his work as a mechanic, spends much of his time wandering among the portraits, telling and retelling his story to tourists, as if one of the victims on the walls had come to life.
An eager and passionate storyteller, he will show a visitor how he was shoved, blindfolded, into his cell during 12 days of torture, and he will drop to the floor inside a small brick cubicle where he was held in chains.
“As you can see, this was my condition,” he said recently as he sat on the hard concrete floor, holding up a metal ammunition box that was used as a toilet. “It upsets me to see Duch sitting in the courtroom talking with his lawyers as if he were a guest of the court.”
Like many other Khmer Rouge victims, both men say they have no idea why they were selected for arrest or why they were tortured to admit to unknown crimes. Both men lost their wives and children in the Khmer Rouge years, and although both have rebuilt their families, the past still holds them in its grip.
Mr. Bou Meng does not wander like his friend among the Tuol Sleng pictures, but he does keep one in his wallet: a snapshot-size reproduction of the prison portrait of his wife, Ma Yoeun, who was arrested with him but did not survive.
“Sometimes when I sit at home I look at the picture and everything seems fresh,” he said. “I think of the suffering she endured, and I wonder how long she stayed alive.”
Mr. Bou Meng has since remarried twice, but he remains shackled to his memories. “I know I should forget her,” he said, “but I can’t.”
She visits him, he said, in visions that are something more than dreams, looking just as she did when he last saw her — still 28 years old, leaving Mr. Bou Meng to live on and grow old without her.
Sometimes she appears with the spirits of others who were killed, he said. They stand together, a crowd of ghosts in black, and she tells him, “Only you, Bou Meng, can find justice for us.”
Mr. Bou Meng said he hoped that testifying against Duch and seeing him convicted would free him from the restless ghosts and let him live what is left of his life in peace.
“I don’t want to be a victim,” he said. “I want to be like everybody else, a normal person.”
But he said he knew that this might be asking too much of life.
“Maybe not completely normal,” Mr. Bou Meng said. “But at least 50 percent.”
One short and forceful, his feet dangling just above the floor, the other melancholy and drooping a bit, they are rare survivors of Tuol Sleng prison, where at least 14,000 people were sent to their deaths three decades ago.
In the weeks ahead, the two survivors will take the stand to testify against their torturer, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, who commanded the prison, and both have stories to tell about a place of horror from which almost no one emerged alive.
Bou Meng, 68, the short one, survived because he was a painter and was singled out from a row of shackled prisoners to produce portraits of the Khmer Rouge chief, Pol Pot.
The other, Chum Mey, 78, was a mechanic and was spared because the torturers needed him to repair machines, including the typewriters used to record the confessions — very often false — that they extracted from prisoners like himself.
Duch (pronounced DOIK), 66, is the first of five arrested Khmer Rouge figures to go on trial in the United Nations-backed tribunal here. His case began in February and is expected to last several more months.
Mr. Bou Meng and Mr. Chum Mey are living exhibits — like a third survivor, Vann Nath — from the darkest core of the Khmer Rouge atrocities. They are tangible evidence, like the skulls that have been preserved at some killing fields, or like hundreds of portraits of their fellow prisoners that are displayed on the walls of Tuol Sleng.
The photographs were taken as detainees were delivered to the prison, before they were stripped and fettered and tortured and sent to a killing field.
Those ordered killed at Tuol Sleng are among 1.7 million people who died during the Communist Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979 from starvation, disease and overwork, as well as from torture and execution.
Duch is accused of ordering the kinds of beatings, whippings, electric shocks and removal of toenails that Mr. Bou Meng and Mr. Chum Mey describe; indeed, he admitted in the courtroom to ordering the beating of Mr. Chum Mey.
Both men endured torture that continued for days, and Mr. Chum Mey said, “At that time I wished I could die rather than survive.”
But both men did survive, and in interviews they now describe scenes that almost none of their fellow prisoners lived to recount. “Every night I looked out at the moon,” Mr. Bou Meng recalled. “I heard people crying and sighing around the building. I heard people calling out, ‘Mother, help me! Mother, help me!’ ”
It was at night that prisoners were trucked out to a killing field, and every night, he said, he feared that his moment had come. “But by midnight or 1 a.m. I realized that I would live another day.”
Though many Cambodians have tried to bury their traumatic memories, Mr. Bou Meng and Mr. Chum Mey have continued to return to the scene of their imprisonment and torture as if their souls remained trapped there together with the souls of the dead.
During the first few years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Mr. Bou Meng returned to work in an office at Tuol Sleng, which was converted into a museum of genocide. Now he uses it as a rest stop, spending the night there on a cot when he visits the capital, Phnom Penh, from the countryside, where he paints Buddhist murals in temples.
Mr. Chum Mey, retired now from his work as a mechanic, spends much of his time wandering among the portraits, telling and retelling his story to tourists, as if one of the victims on the walls had come to life.
An eager and passionate storyteller, he will show a visitor how he was shoved, blindfolded, into his cell during 12 days of torture, and he will drop to the floor inside a small brick cubicle where he was held in chains.
“As you can see, this was my condition,” he said recently as he sat on the hard concrete floor, holding up a metal ammunition box that was used as a toilet. “It upsets me to see Duch sitting in the courtroom talking with his lawyers as if he were a guest of the court.”
Like many other Khmer Rouge victims, both men say they have no idea why they were selected for arrest or why they were tortured to admit to unknown crimes. Both men lost their wives and children in the Khmer Rouge years, and although both have rebuilt their families, the past still holds them in its grip.
Mr. Bou Meng does not wander like his friend among the Tuol Sleng pictures, but he does keep one in his wallet: a snapshot-size reproduction of the prison portrait of his wife, Ma Yoeun, who was arrested with him but did not survive.
“Sometimes when I sit at home I look at the picture and everything seems fresh,” he said. “I think of the suffering she endured, and I wonder how long she stayed alive.”
Mr. Bou Meng has since remarried twice, but he remains shackled to his memories. “I know I should forget her,” he said, “but I can’t.”
She visits him, he said, in visions that are something more than dreams, looking just as she did when he last saw her — still 28 years old, leaving Mr. Bou Meng to live on and grow old without her.
Sometimes she appears with the spirits of others who were killed, he said. They stand together, a crowd of ghosts in black, and she tells him, “Only you, Bou Meng, can find justice for us.”
Mr. Bou Meng said he hoped that testifying against Duch and seeing him convicted would free him from the restless ghosts and let him live what is left of his life in peace.
“I don’t want to be a victim,” he said. “I want to be like everybody else, a normal person.”
But he said he knew that this might be asking too much of life.
“Maybe not completely normal,” Mr. Bou Meng said. “But at least 50 percent.”
Monday, December 15, 2008
Duch trial logistical meeting set for mid-January
Sunday, 14 December 2008 Written by Elena Lesley The Phnom Penh Post
Now that judges have confirmed the final charges against "Comrade Duch," the Trial Chamber has taken the next step toward actually trying the Tuol Sleng torture chief. A "Trial Management Meeting" has been scheduled for Jan. 15-16.
The meeting, which will be closed to press and the public, will "allow exchanges between the parties, facilitate the setting of dates of the Initial and Substantive Hearings and review the status of the case," according to a release from the court.
Included on the preliminary agenda for the meeting: review of defendants' health status, updates on civil party applications, witness protection issues, proposed daily trial schedules and potential trial dates. After this largely organizational meeting, the Trial Chamber will set a date for the Initial Hearing, "during which the Chamber will consider the lists of potential witnesses and experts filed by the Parties, preliminary objections and applications submitted by victims to be joined as civil parties," according to the release.
Once this hearing is complete, the date for the trial's first substantive hearing can be scheduled.
Hopefully this process will proceed in an expeditious manner and the substantive portion of Duch's trial will begin, as predicted, by March 2009. However, I am not sure what effect unresolved corruption allegations at the court could have on the tribunal's time line.
A UN delegation met with Deputy Prime Minister Sok An last week to discuss corruption charges leveled at the court. However, no information released to the public addressed a recent UN review of kickback allegations that reportedly recommended the Cambodian government conduct a full investigation.
Instead, the UN delegation abruptly cancelled a press conference scheduled for Wednesday evening and issued a joint statement with the Cambodian government. According to the statement, the national and foreign sides of the court will conduct joint sessions to "ensure that the entire administration operates in a transparent, fair and efficient manner." Results of the sessions will be reported to higher authorities by the end of January 2009.
Once again, no mention was made of the UN corruption review already forwarded to the Cambodian government.
The meeting, which will be closed to press and the public, will "allow exchanges between the parties, facilitate the setting of dates of the Initial and Substantive Hearings and review the status of the case," according to a release from the court.
Included on the preliminary agenda for the meeting: review of defendants' health status, updates on civil party applications, witness protection issues, proposed daily trial schedules and potential trial dates. After this largely organizational meeting, the Trial Chamber will set a date for the Initial Hearing, "during which the Chamber will consider the lists of potential witnesses and experts filed by the Parties, preliminary objections and applications submitted by victims to be joined as civil parties," according to the release.
Once this hearing is complete, the date for the trial's first substantive hearing can be scheduled.
Hopefully this process will proceed in an expeditious manner and the substantive portion of Duch's trial will begin, as predicted, by March 2009. However, I am not sure what effect unresolved corruption allegations at the court could have on the tribunal's time line.
A UN delegation met with Deputy Prime Minister Sok An last week to discuss corruption charges leveled at the court. However, no information released to the public addressed a recent UN review of kickback allegations that reportedly recommended the Cambodian government conduct a full investigation.
Instead, the UN delegation abruptly cancelled a press conference scheduled for Wednesday evening and issued a joint statement with the Cambodian government. According to the statement, the national and foreign sides of the court will conduct joint sessions to "ensure that the entire administration operates in a transparent, fair and efficient manner." Results of the sessions will be reported to higher authorities by the end of January 2009.
Once again, no mention was made of the UN corruption review already forwarded to the Cambodian government.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Documents: 177 people were released from Khmer Rouge torture centre
Aug 28, 2008
DPA
DPA
Phnom Penh - Documents showed 177 prisoners were released from the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 torture centre, the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-Cam) told local media Thursday in a dramatic turnaround from previous statements that only seven people had survived.
DC-Cam previously maintained only a handful of people had survived the torture centre by the time the Khmer Rouge fell in 1979 and up to 16,000 had died there. DC-Cam is credited with archiving thousands of documents left by the 1975-79 Democratic Kampuchea regime and being the foremost documentary authority on it.
DC-Cam has supplied the bulk of documentary evidence to the joint UN-Cambodian court set up to try former leaders of the Khmer Rouge.
'These are documents sitting there for the past 30 years,' the English-language Cambodia Daily quoted DC-Cam director Youk Chhang as saying.
Chhang said the 177 released prisoners should 'not be considered survivors as they had been spared by their captors.'
He was unavailable for comment Thursday as to why DC-Cam had not drawn public attention to the historically invaluable documents earlier nor perused testimonies of released prisoners before the indictment of former S-21 jailer Kaing Guek Euv, alias Duch, if it knew of them.
In July 2007, DC-Cam initially disputed the claims of Chim Math, who was subsequently recognized by others as S-21's first known female survivor, saying no available documents supported her claims.
It was unclear if the new evidence would affect the defence case for Duch, who was expected to face court as early as October.
Duch is charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity and has not denied overseeing the centre, where men, women and children were beaten, starved and subjected to horrors, including being forced to wear buckets of live scorpions on their heads.
In his August 8 indictment, the co-investigating judges upheld the previously held theory that nobody was ever released.
Up to 2 million Cambodians perished under the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge regime.
DC-Cam previously maintained only a handful of people had survived the torture centre by the time the Khmer Rouge fell in 1979 and up to 16,000 had died there. DC-Cam is credited with archiving thousands of documents left by the 1975-79 Democratic Kampuchea regime and being the foremost documentary authority on it.
DC-Cam has supplied the bulk of documentary evidence to the joint UN-Cambodian court set up to try former leaders of the Khmer Rouge.
'These are documents sitting there for the past 30 years,' the English-language Cambodia Daily quoted DC-Cam director Youk Chhang as saying.
Chhang said the 177 released prisoners should 'not be considered survivors as they had been spared by their captors.'
He was unavailable for comment Thursday as to why DC-Cam had not drawn public attention to the historically invaluable documents earlier nor perused testimonies of released prisoners before the indictment of former S-21 jailer Kaing Guek Euv, alias Duch, if it knew of them.
In July 2007, DC-Cam initially disputed the claims of Chim Math, who was subsequently recognized by others as S-21's first known female survivor, saying no available documents supported her claims.
It was unclear if the new evidence would affect the defence case for Duch, who was expected to face court as early as October.
Duch is charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity and has not denied overseeing the centre, where men, women and children were beaten, starved and subjected to horrors, including being forced to wear buckets of live scorpions on their heads.
In his August 8 indictment, the co-investigating judges upheld the previously held theory that nobody was ever released.
Up to 2 million Cambodians perished under the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge regime.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Trial Judges Prepare for Duch Atrocity Case
By Mean Veasna, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
06 August 2008
Original report from Phnom Penh
06 August 2008
International jurists for the Trial Chamber of the Khmer Rouge tribunal have joined their Cambodian counterparts in anticipation of the trial of Duch, whose pre-trial preparations will be completed soon, a tribunal spokesman said Wednesday.
The case of the infamous chief of the Tuol Sleng torture center, who is charged crimes against humanity, will be the first tried of five jailed former leaders of the regime. More than 16,000 Cambodians were tortured and sent to the deaths at the center.
His trial is expected to begin in September or October.
Both French and New Zealand trial judges began working with their Cambodian colleagues last week, and the trial chambers have been equipped and prepared, tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said.
"The courtroom, the seats for participation of victims, are ready," he said. "And the trial judges have already prepared themselves. The famous judge Sylvia Cartwright, a New Zealand national, arrived this Monday."
Co-investigating judge Marcel Lemonde said the proceedings against Duch were entering the period of closure and would be filed soon to the First Trial Chamber.
A source close to the tribunal said Wednesday the co-investigation judges will likely complete the closing order early this week or late next week, and the First Trial Chamber will hold a meeting to decide the set the date for Duch, around Sept. 15.
"We don't see any obstacles regarding the trial of Duch," Adhoc tribunal monitor Hisham Mousar said.
Duch was held by Cambodian military courts from May 1999 until he was handed to the tribunal last year.
Keat Bophal, head of the tribunal's Victims Unit, said Duch is facing 66 civil complaints.
The case of the infamous chief of the Tuol Sleng torture center, who is charged crimes against humanity, will be the first tried of five jailed former leaders of the regime. More than 16,000 Cambodians were tortured and sent to the deaths at the center.
His trial is expected to begin in September or October.
Both French and New Zealand trial judges began working with their Cambodian colleagues last week, and the trial chambers have been equipped and prepared, tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said.
"The courtroom, the seats for participation of victims, are ready," he said. "And the trial judges have already prepared themselves. The famous judge Sylvia Cartwright, a New Zealand national, arrived this Monday."
Co-investigating judge Marcel Lemonde said the proceedings against Duch were entering the period of closure and would be filed soon to the First Trial Chamber.
A source close to the tribunal said Wednesday the co-investigation judges will likely complete the closing order early this week or late next week, and the First Trial Chamber will hold a meeting to decide the set the date for Duch, around Sept. 15.
"We don't see any obstacles regarding the trial of Duch," Adhoc tribunal monitor Hisham Mousar said.
Duch was held by Cambodian military courts from May 1999 until he was handed to the tribunal last year.
Keat Bophal, head of the tribunal's Victims Unit, said Duch is facing 66 civil complaints.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Trial Judges Prepare for Duch Atrocity Case
By Mean Veasna, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
06 August 2008
Original report from Phnom Penh
06 August 2008
International jurists for the Trial Chamber of the Khmer Rouge tribunal have joined their Cambodian counterparts in anticipation of the trial of Duch, whose pre-trial preparations will be completed soon, a tribunal spokesman said Wednesday.
The case of the infamous chief of the Tuol Sleng torture center, who is charged crimes against humanity, will be the first tried of five jailed former leaders of the regime. More than 16,000 Cambodians were tortured and sent to the deaths at the center.
His trial is expected to begin in September or October.
Both French and New Zealand trial judges began working with their Cambodian colleagues last week, and the trial chambers have been equipped and prepared, tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said.
"The courtroom, the seats for participation of victims, are ready," he said. "And the trial judges have already prepared themselves. The famous judge Sylvia Cartwright, a New Zealand national, arrived this Monday."
Co-investigating judge Marcel Lemonde said the proceedings against Duch were entering the period of closure and would be filed soon to the First Trial Chamber.
A source close to the tribunal said Wednesday the co-investigation judges will likely complete the closing order early this week or late next week, and the First Trial Chamber will hold a meeting to decide the set the date for Duch, around Sept. 15.
"We don't see any obstacles regarding the trial of Duch," Adhoc tribunal monitor Hisham Mousar said.
Duch was held by Cambodian military courts from May 1999 until he was handed to the tribunal last year.
Keat Bophal, head of the tribunal's Victims Unit, said Duch is facing 66 civil complaints.
The case of the infamous chief of the Tuol Sleng torture center, who is charged crimes against humanity, will be the first tried of five jailed former leaders of the regime. More than 16,000 Cambodians were tortured and sent to the deaths at the center.
His trial is expected to begin in September or October.
Both French and New Zealand trial judges began working with their Cambodian colleagues last week, and the trial chambers have been equipped and prepared, tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said.
"The courtroom, the seats for participation of victims, are ready," he said. "And the trial judges have already prepared themselves. The famous judge Sylvia Cartwright, a New Zealand national, arrived this Monday."
Co-investigating judge Marcel Lemonde said the proceedings against Duch were entering the period of closure and would be filed soon to the First Trial Chamber.
A source close to the tribunal said Wednesday the co-investigation judges will likely complete the closing order early this week or late next week, and the First Trial Chamber will hold a meeting to decide the set the date for Duch, around Sept. 15.
"We don't see any obstacles regarding the trial of Duch," Adhoc tribunal monitor Hisham Mousar said.
Duch was held by Cambodian military courts from May 1999 until he was handed to the tribunal last year.
Keat Bophal, head of the tribunal's Victims Unit, said Duch is facing 66 civil complaints.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Judges preparing for first trial on genocide in Cambodia
Thursday, July 31, 2008
The Associated Press
The Associated Press
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Cambodian and international judges are making final preparations to begin the trial of the former commander of a Khmer Rouge torture center who is charged with crimes against humanity, a tribunal official said Thursday.
The trial of Kaing Guek Eav, 65, alias Duch, who headed the notorious S-21 prison and torture center, is scheduled for late September, said Helen Jarvis, a spokeswoman for the United Nations-assisted tribunal.
The trial is a key step in Cambodia's long wait for justice for atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge rule in the late 1970s. Some 1.7 million people perished.
"To have the director of that institution on trial for crimes committed will be of enormous importance in understanding the Democratic Kampuchea regime," Jarvis said, referring to the Khmer Rouge's official name at the time.
The prison in Phnom Penh was the Khmer Rouge's largest torture facility, and has now become the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
About 16,000 men, women and children are believed to have been held there. Only 14 are thought to have survived.
The tribunal has been set up under Cambodia's court system, which follows the French model in which case files are handled by investigating judges before being handed to other judges for the actual trial.
The five judges who will try Duch's case include three Cambodians and one Frenchman, Jean-Marc Lavergne, who took up their positions in July. A fifth judge from New Zealand, Silvia Cartwright, is to arrive in Cambodia later this week, Jarvis said.
Duch is one of five suspects being held for trial. The others are former top lieutenants of late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who died in 1998.
They are former head of state Khieu Samphan, former chief ideologist Nuon Chea, ex-Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, and his wife Ieng Thirith, who served as the Khmer Rouge social affairs minister.
They face charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The trial of Kaing Guek Eav, 65, alias Duch, who headed the notorious S-21 prison and torture center, is scheduled for late September, said Helen Jarvis, a spokeswoman for the United Nations-assisted tribunal.
The trial is a key step in Cambodia's long wait for justice for atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge rule in the late 1970s. Some 1.7 million people perished.
"To have the director of that institution on trial for crimes committed will be of enormous importance in understanding the Democratic Kampuchea regime," Jarvis said, referring to the Khmer Rouge's official name at the time.
The prison in Phnom Penh was the Khmer Rouge's largest torture facility, and has now become the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
About 16,000 men, women and children are believed to have been held there. Only 14 are thought to have survived.
The tribunal has been set up under Cambodia's court system, which follows the French model in which case files are handled by investigating judges before being handed to other judges for the actual trial.
The five judges who will try Duch's case include three Cambodians and one Frenchman, Jean-Marc Lavergne, who took up their positions in July. A fifth judge from New Zealand, Silvia Cartwright, is to arrive in Cambodia later this week, Jarvis said.
Duch is one of five suspects being held for trial. The others are former top lieutenants of late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who died in 1998.
They are former head of state Khieu Samphan, former chief ideologist Nuon Chea, ex-Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, and his wife Ieng Thirith, who served as the Khmer Rouge social affairs minister.
They face charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Duch To Be Tried in Early 2009: Tribunal Judge
By Mean Veasna, VOA Khmer Original report from Phnom Penh
05 May 2008
Jailed Khmer Rouge prison director Kaing Khek Iev, known to many by his nom de guerre, Duch, will be the first regime cadre to be tried, some time early next year, a tribunal judge said Monday.
You Bunleng, an investigating judge for the tribunal, said the investigation of Duch’s case will be finished this month, after which responses from lawyers will be considered before the case is submitted for trial.
If all goes smoothly, the first case against Duch can be submitted by July or August, meaning a trial could start by the end of 2008 or beginning of 2009, he said.
Duch was arrested in 1999 and held by the military courts until his transfer to tribunal detention last year.
He faces charges of crimes against humanity for his role as director of S-21, or Tuol Sleng, a prison where as many as 16,000 Cambodians were tortured and later executed in “killing fields” on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Less than 10 survived.
“The case related to Tuol Sleng’s history is easier than others, and there is clear evidence,” said Sok Samoeun, director of the Cambodian Defenders Project. You Bunleng said Monday elements of Duch’s trial will be used in subsequent trials.
You Bunleng, an investigating judge for the tribunal, said the investigation of Duch’s case will be finished this month, after which responses from lawyers will be considered before the case is submitted for trial.
If all goes smoothly, the first case against Duch can be submitted by July or August, meaning a trial could start by the end of 2008 or beginning of 2009, he said.
Duch was arrested in 1999 and held by the military courts until his transfer to tribunal detention last year.
He faces charges of crimes against humanity for his role as director of S-21, or Tuol Sleng, a prison where as many as 16,000 Cambodians were tortured and later executed in “killing fields” on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Less than 10 survived.
“The case related to Tuol Sleng’s history is easier than others, and there is clear evidence,” said Sok Samoeun, director of the Cambodian Defenders Project. You Bunleng said Monday elements of Duch’s trial will be used in subsequent trials.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Duch Investigation Could Last to April: Expert
By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Washington
21 February 2008
Washington
21 February 2008
The investigation leading to the trial of Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch could last through April, with trials starting thereafter, a tribunal expert said Tuesday.
That means Duch, whose real name is Kaing Khek Iev, 65, could see a trial in the second half of 2008, "if there are not political or other problems acting as obstacles," said Hisham Mousar, a tribunal monitor for the rights group Adhoc.
Duch oversaw the infamous Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh, where as many as 16,000 Cambodians were tortured, later to be executed in the "killing fields" outside the capital.
His trial would be the first of five jailed Khmer Rouge leaders, who were ousted from power nearly 30 years ago.
Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said the investigators were "expediting the investigation" and would wrap up their work by Khmer New Year, in mid-April.
That means Duch, whose real name is Kaing Khek Iev, 65, could see a trial in the second half of 2008, "if there are not political or other problems acting as obstacles," said Hisham Mousar, a tribunal monitor for the rights group Adhoc.
Duch oversaw the infamous Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh, where as many as 16,000 Cambodians were tortured, later to be executed in the "killing fields" outside the capital.
His trial would be the first of five jailed Khmer Rouge leaders, who were ousted from power nearly 30 years ago.
Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said the investigators were "expediting the investigation" and would wrap up their work by Khmer New Year, in mid-April.
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