Duch Concedes to Beating Prisoners

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

The former Khmer Rouge prison chief known as Duch on Tuesday confessed to beating a prisoner himself, following testimony from a former guard at his Tuol Sleng prison Monday.

Duch, whose real name is Kaing Kek Iev, told the UN-backed court he did not deny the testimony of Saom Met, who told judges he had seen Duch beating a prisoner with a rattan stick.

Duch said he “risked a heavy crime” by his admission, but said, “I do not hesitate at all, and I recognize all my crimes.”

Duch is charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and murder for his role as the administrator of the notorious prison, where prosecutors say 12,380 people were sent to their deaths.

He has admitted to sending people to their deaths, but in the past has sought not to implicate himself in murder by his own hands.

Duch said Monday he had abused the prisoner, but not seriously, and said the “most serious” crimes for him had been passing communist doctrine to his staff the prison, known the Khmer Rouge as S-21.

“In my capacity as director of S-21, the crime that seems the most serious for me is the policy lectures I gave to them,” he said. “For instance, [that] those where were arrested by the party must be considered enemies.”

If interrogators did not recognize the inmates as enemies, they would not have gotten “confessions” from them, he said.

“This is the most serious crime, that I am responsible for more than 10,000 lives,” he said.

The former guard, Saom Met, told the court Tuesday the rule on torture as Tuol Sleng was to exact answers from prisoners, even if it meant torturing them to death.

KRouge prison chief admits personally torturing inmate

Tuesday, August 11, 2009
AFP

PHNOM PENH — The Khmer Rouge's main jail chief on Tuesday admitted for the first time before Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes tribunal that he tortured a prisoner personally.

Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, is on trial for overseeing the torture and execution of about 15,000 people at Tuol Sleng detention centre in the late 1970s.

Duch's confession came a day after a guard, Saom Meth, told the court that he saw his boss beat an inmate with a rattan stick.

"Regarding the testimony of comrade Meth, in general, it is true," Duch told the court.

"The point that I went to torture a prisoner at Tuy (an interrogator's) location, I would not deny it," the 66-year-old former maths teacher said.

But Duch said the most serious crime he committed was the "political indoctrination" of his staff at the prison, also known as S-21, to make them consider the inmates as enemies of the Khmer Rouge party.

"That was the most serious crime that I committed, and that I am responsible for more than 10,000 lives lost at S-21," he said, adding that he was also "the one who initiated" the arrest of many people.

"All the crimes committed at S-21, regardless of forms of torture used and regardless whether the special forces used or transported the prisoners to be executed somewhere else, they had to do it because of my instruction," he said.

"I do not deny all these crimes, I accept them," Duch said, adding that he also used to enter a room where a "very humble" Briton was being interrogated.

Earlier Tuesday, Saom Meth told the court that he heard an ex-colleague report to record-keepers that many foreign prisoners, including Americans, were burned on the street.

The prison in the capital Phnom Penh was at the centre of the Khmer Rouge's brutal campaign of repression and was later turned into a genocide museum after the movement was overthrown by forces backed by neighbouring Vietnam.

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.

Khmer Rouge prison chief 'beat inmate'

Monday, August 10, 2009
AFP

PHNOM PENH — A former guard at the Khmer Rouge's main jail said Monday that he saw his boss beat an inmate with a stick -- the first testimony by an ex-colleague that Duch personally tortured prisoners.

Witness Saom Meth was giving evidence to Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes tribunal in the trial of prison chief Duch, who is accused of overseeing the torture and execution of about 15,000 people at Tuol Sleng detention centre.

"I saw Brother Duch sitting right in the villa (at the jail) with a rattan stick in his hand and the guards were outside at the door," Saom Meth told the court.

"Duch actually used the rattan stick to beat the detainee, he did not beat him much before I left. He beat him on the back," the 51-year-old said.

Saom Meth also described various torture techniques used at the jail including the insertion of electric wires into the ears and the ripping out of prisoners' fingernails.

"I could see their nails were removed and their backs sustained some wound," Saom Meth added.

The 66-year-old Duch, 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.

The prison in the capital Phnom Penh was at the centre of the Khmer Rouge's brutal campaign of repression and was turned into a genocide museum after forces backed by neighbouring Vietnam overthrew the movement.

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.