Western inmate identified in S-21 portraits

Recently identified S-21 victim Christopher Edward DeLance. Photograph: Documentation Center of Cambodia

Monday, 03 September 2012
Joseph Freeman
The Phnom Penh Post

One of two Westerners whose portraits were found among a recently uncovered cache of S-21 inmate portraits has been identified as American sailor Christopher Edward DeLance, who was seized by the Khmer Rouge while boating off the Cambodian coast in 1978.

After receiving photographs of the two Westerners in a cache of 1,427 anonymously donated S-21 inmate portraits last month, Documentation Center of Cambodia director Youk Chhang suspected the two were DeLance and former Phnom Penh French Embassy employee Andre Gaston Courtigne.

To find out if one of the photos was DeLance, Youk reached out to author Peter Maguire, who researched the killing of Westerners at S-21 in his book Facing Death in Cambodia.

Maguire told Youk he had confirmed from two independent sources that the photo shows the face of DeLance.

Relatives killed “for nothing,” survivors doomed to living with ghosts

Kambol (Phnom Penh, Cambodia). 18/08/2009: Photograph of Tioulong Raingsy shown on a screen in the ECCC press room (Photo: John Vink/ Magnum)

20-08-2009
By Stéphanie Gée
Ka-set

Relatives of victims whose lives ended brutally in S-21’s hell evoked with courage, before the Chamber and the accused, a beloved face gone forever, a broken family bliss, an unspeakable distress and the anguish sprung from the ignorance about the fate of those persecuted and imagining the most inhumane torture they must have endured. They stressed the powerlessness in the face of these individual tragedies that unfolded without them. Mrs Antonya Tioulong, sister of opposition party leader Sam Rainsy’s wife, shared on Tuesday August 18th a testimony filled with restraint that struck the right chord. By late afternoon, farmer Neth Phaly paid an impassioned tribute to his brother, “smashed” at S-21, and whose only remains consisted in a portrait he presented to the court, firmly holding it in his hands, to bring the latter’s soul back to his side while he testified in his memory.

Finding the disappeared relatives at any cost

Antonya Tioulong, chief of the documentation service at the French weekly L’Express, came as her family’s spokesperson – first, the two daughters of her older sister Raingsy who was assassinated, but also her mother, “who found the courage to come and stand in the same room as the accused,” and her five other sisters. She also presented herself as a voice for Raingsy, “no longer here to speak,” to defend her and to “say who she really was and how much her family desperately misses her.”

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Relatives of Professor Phoeung Ton verbally attacked Duch

A Cambodian man watches television at a restaurant in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2009 as it shows a Cambodian woman, Im Sunty, center, whose husband was killed by the Khmer Rouge during its 1975-1979 rule in Cambodia. The TV program is broadcast during the trial of Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who is tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity at the U.N.-backed tribunal. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

19 August 2009
By Leang Delux
Radio France Internationale
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy

The wife and eldest daughter of the late Professor Phoeung Ton confronted Duch this Wednesday. Relatives of Prof. Phoeung Ton demanded that Duch provides information about his death, but Duch kept on claiming that he does not know.

The wife and eldest daughter of Prof. Phoeung Ton, who are part of the KRT civil party, used strong words to address Duch during Wednesday’s hearing. Prof. Phoeung Ton was a professor of international and maritime law, and he was also Duch’s former professor as well. The professor was brought into S-21 for questioning and he disappeared around 1977, according to research information obtained by his daughter. Today, Mrs. Phoeung Gut Sunthary, Prof. Phoeung Ton’s daughter, and Mrs. Im Sunty, Prof. Phoeung Ton’s wife, demanded that Duch tells the reason for the professor’s killing. Mrs. Sunthary told Duch during the court hearing that if Duch does not reveal the truth about her father’s killing, she will not open the door for Duch to apologize.

This is the very first declaration made against Duch’s confession. During his initial hearing, Duch called on all victims of the KR regime to leave a door open for him to apologize. It seems that relatives of Prof. Phoeung Ton will not accept Duch’s constant apology anymore because during today’s hearing, Duch confirmed again and again that he could not control the bringing of Prof. Phoeung Ton to S-21 which was then under Duch’s control. Duch expressed his regret, saying that if he knew Prof. Phoeung Ton was brought to S-21, at least he could facilitate the professor’s life in jail, just like what he did to a number of other people, such as Chau Seng [a former minister under Sihanouk’s Sangkum Reastr Niyum regime] and Ruos Kout.

In addition to the declaration made Prof. Phoeung Ton’s daughter, the professor’s wife also made a declaration. Mrs. Im Sunty, who is currently 70-year-old, told the court in tears that during the past 30 years, she was never happy, she is filled with sadness from the disappearance of her husband. While not addressing directly to Duch who was listening to her declaration, Mrs. Im Sunty said: “You are a teacher, you should have compassion to serve the nation. You should not fulfill such a role like this.”

French woman weeps for justice at Khmer Rouge trial

French woman weeps over her dead Cambodian husband at UN-court handling Khmer Rouge trial of jail boss Duch.

Tue, 18 August 2009
AFP / Expatica

Phnom Penh – A French woman wept Monday as she told a UN-backed war crimes court how her Cambodian husband was tricked into returning from overseas to die in the Khmer Rouge regime's main prison.

Martine Lefeuvre, 56, was giving evidence at the trial of jail boss Duch, who was accused of overseeing the torture and execution of about 15,000 people at the notorious Tuol Sleng detention centre.

"I came before this chamber in order to ask for justice to be done for this barbaric crime," Lefeuvre told the court, demanding the "maximum sentence" for Duch.

Lefeuvre, a nurse, said her French-educated husband Ouk Ket was asked to return home in 1977 from his job as a diplomat in Senegal, Dakar, to help the reconstruction of Cambodia.

But she said that on arrival Ouk Ket was "kidnapped with his hands tied behind his back, blindfolded, and brought in a truck" and went to "hell" at the jail in the capital Phnom Penh.

Her husband was "tied up like slave to a metal bar, chained up," she said.

Lefeuvre said that in 1991 she and her family came to see Tuol Sleng, which was turned into a genocide museum after the 1979 fall of the Khmer Rouge, and found his name on a list of the dead.

"He died a slow death at S-21 in the most complete secrecy," she said, referring to the prison by its former, official Khmer Rouge name.

"Murderers broke his skull at Choeung Ek (the so-called "killing field" outside Phnom Penh, where inmates were executed) and then cut his throat while throwing him into a pit. This is an absolutely inexcusable murder," she said.

"Ket's suffering was and still is our suffering and it does not go away with time. I can tell you that this suffering is more and more intense," she said.

The 66-year-old Duch, a former maths teacher whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, has previously accepted responsibility for his role in governing the jail under the 1975-1979 communist regime and begged forgiveness.

But Lefeuvre told the court she was not ready to forgive him.

Led by Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the Khmer Rouge emptied Cambodia's cities in a bid to forge an agrarian utopia, resulting in the deaths of up to two million people from starvation, overwork and torture.

Duch violently accused by relatives of foreigners tortured at S-21

Kambol (Phnom Penh, Cambodia). 17/08/2009: Martine Lefeuvre, 57-year-old civil party and wife of Ouk Ket, who was executed at S-21, on Day 59 of the trial of Kaing Guek Eav at the ECCC (Photo: John Vink/ Magnum)

18-08-2009
By Stéphanie Gée
Ka-set

Monday August 17th, the relatives of victims who disappeared at S-21, the death anteroom ran by Duch, started testifying. Foreigners were the first civil parties to appear: at the stand, a French woman and her daughter, then a New Zealander, cried out their suffering and disgust towards the accused. They revealed the extent of the destruction of their families, forever in mourning. Faced with their anger, or even hatred, the accused, drowned under the voice of the victims, proved highly sober in his comments and took a self-flagellation stance.

Searching for a disappeared husband

Mrs Martine Lefeuvre lost her husband at S-21, a Cambodian engineer-diplomat, with whom she had two children. The French woman, who lives at Le Mans, married in 1971 and followed her husband Ouk Ket to Senegal, where he had been appointed third secretary. In April 1977, the latter received a notice from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, asking him to return to Phnom Penh. He went there, without his family, convinced he would participate to the rebuilding of his country. Very soon, Mrs Lefeuvre was without news from him. She then started seeking any information about him, knocking on every door, first the Chinese Embassy, as her husband previously stayed in Beijing, but also Amnesty International, the International Red Cross. She met with Cambodian delegations with the obsession to find her husband’s trace. To no avail.

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KRouge victim identifies photos of dead family

Monday, July 13, 2009

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — A woman who said she survived the Khmer Rouge's main torture centre has identified at Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court chilling photos of family members killed at the jail.

Nam Mon, 48, was testifying at the trial of prison chief Duch, who is accused of overseeing the torture and extermination of around 15,000 people who passed through Tuol Sleng prison during the regime's brutal 1975-1979 rule.

"This is the photo of my father the moment he was dying," Nam Mon said after being shown an image of an emaciated man lying down, staring into the air.

As a court-appointed psychiatrist comforted her, Nam Mon identified black and white prison photos of her parents, three brothers and a sister-in-law executed at the prison.

Recognised as a civil claimant in the case against Duch, Nam Mon told the court Thursday that one of her brothers had been ordered to kill her father. Her testimony was adjourned last week when she began to weep uncontrollably.

Nam Mon said that her two elder brothers were guards at Tuol Sleng before her family was killed at the notorious jail, while she initially lived and worked there as a medic before being interrogated herself.

"I treated the sick. I saw prisoners who were beaten and interrogated... I only saw the wounds and the bleeding on bodies of prisoners while I treated them," Nam Mon said Monday.

The 66-year-old Duch, real name Kaing Guek Eav, begged for forgiveness from victims near the start of his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, after accepting responsibility for his role overseeing the jail.

But he has consistently rejected claims by prosecutors that he held a central leadership role in the Khmer Rouge, and says he never personally executed anyone.

Led by Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the Khmer Rouge emptied Cambodia's cities in a bid to forge a communist utopia. Up to two million people were executed or died of starvation, overwork or torture.

Four other former Khmer Rouge leaders are currently in detention and are expected to face trial next year.