Tuol Sleng Guard Wants To See Duch Tried

Him Huy (Photo: DC-Cam)

By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Kandal province
13 February 2009

In the village Anlong San, in Kandal province, 80 kilometers from Phnom Penh, Him Huy, passes house after house, walking indiscriminately and with total liberty.

Thirty years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, the former guard supervisor at Tuol Sleng prison has hung up his black uniform, put away his cap, given up his arms, and become a simple farmer in this village close to the Vietnam border.

Now Him Huy is one of the witnesses against Kaing Kek Iev, his former boss, the Khmer Rouge prison chief known as Duch who will go on trial soon.

“I will oppose Duch,” Him Huy said in an interview this week, “because he is one of the Khmer Rouge leaders who hurt very much the Cambodian people and caused the deaths of Cambodian citizens nearly all over the country.”

Under the Khmer Rouge, Him Huy received prisoners as they were brought to Tuol Sleng, and he was ordered to arrest “enemies of the Angkar,” the Organization, in Phnom Penh and in the provinces.

Each day, he said, Tuol Sleng received between 10 to 60 detainees, and, during the same day, as many as 30 to 70 people were tortured and killed.

“The order to make arrests came from Duch,” he said. “If Duch wanted someone destroyed, he would be destroyed. And he said that after one of the prisoners was interrogated, he must be destroyed. Even prison staff. He said if they cannot follow [orders] they would be destroyed also.”

Duch is charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and murder for his role as chief of Tuol Sleng, where at least 12,000 Cambodians were tortured before they were executed. His initial trial hearing is set for Feb. 17, with a trial to begin in earnest shortly thereafter.

Duch’s trial will be a signal of justice for Cambodian victims and will inform the international community that Khmer Rouge leaders must be tried for their mistakes, Him Huy said.

In Anlong San, Him Huy’s neighbors say they are waiting for Duch’s trial as well, are following the progress of the courts by radio and plan to follow the hearing on television.

Meanwhile, as Duch’s approaching trial has increased interest in the long-awaited tribunal, the courts remain dogged by allegations of corruption.

The Open Society Justice Initiative, a tribunal monitoring group, issued a statement Friday warning of “grave flaws” in the courts and warning that recent reports “suggest the Cambodian government is attempting to block further indictments.”

“The court must demonstrate that it is not a tool of the Cambodian government and ensure a fair and transparent judicial process,” OSJI Executive Director James Goldston said in the statement. “The court must show it is relying on law and facts, not politics, in deciding how many suspects will be investigated.”

New suspects on the horizon?

Sunday, 30 November 2008
Written by Elena Lesley
The Phnom Penh Post

There has been a good deal of buzz lately that Co-Prosecutors at the ECCC are close to deciding whether they will pursue additional suspects. The number of former Khmers Rouge who will go before the tribunal has long been a point of contention and speculation, and critics of the court argue that the scope of prosecutions has been artificially constrained by Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Suspects in addition to the five already in custody have been identified (though not publicly). However, international and Cambodian Co-Prosecutors have reportedly been unable to decide whether to pursue charges against them.

According to a recent story posted by the Inter Press Service, between two to six additional suspects are under consideration. But pursuing new prosecutions could be tricky.

For example, Sou Met and Meah Muth, high-ranking Khmer Rouge military officials mentioned in Stephen Heder's Seven Candidates for Prosecution, went on to hold senior positions in the current Cambodian army, according to the IPS article.

Moreover, "one problem with including these two as prime suspects is that it extends the scope considerably beyond the highest bodies of the Centre, raising the question of how many others held equal rank and would therefore logically be included as prime suspects," Helen Jarvis and Tom Fawthrop write in Getting away with Genocide? Elusive Justice and the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.

Still, to demonstrate the court's independence from Cambodian political influence and to more accurately reflect the country's history, Co-Prosecutors should name additional suspects, Beth Van Schaack writes in her commentary Who's Next?

"Were the Extraordinary Chambers to limit their consideration to these five suspects, they would paint an inaccurate and stilted picture of the way in which crimes were committed under the Khmer Rouge," she writes. "... academic research suggests that Khmer Rouge cadre were given considerable discretion to implement the sometime cryptic directives emanating from the Standing Committee."

While I don't know how close Co-Prosecutors truly are to deciding about additional suspects, I will post as soon as I have any information.