Closing Order of Case 002 against Senior KR Leaders Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith

In light of the HISTORIC (!) start of MOST COMPLEX (sic!) trial hearings beginning on   27 June 2011 and again ANOTHER HISTORIC (!) START of this same MOST COMPLEX (sic!) on 21 Nov. 2011 of Case 002 against the surviving Khmer Rouge senior leaders Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, KI Media is posting installations of the public document of the Closing Order of Case 002 (or, Indictment). The Closing Order of the Co-Investigating Judges forms the basic document from which all the parties (co-prosecutors, lead co-lawyers for all civil parties, defense lawyers) make their arguments before the Trial Chamber judges (one Cambodian President, 2 Cambodian Judges, 2 UN judges). Up until now, the hearings involving these four surviving senior Khmer Rouge leaders have been in the Pre-Trial Chamber over issues of pre-trial detention and jurisdictional issues. Beginning in June November 2011, the Trial Chamber is hearing the substantive (sic!) arguments over the criminal charges   (genocide against Buddhists, genocide against Vietnamese, genocide against Cham Muslims, crimes against humanity at the 200 prisons, mass crimes in countless killing fields, Eastern Zone purges, penal code of 1956, etc.) of only the Phase I Movement in April 1975.

 
 Available in Khmer, English and French. Contact the ECCC for a free copy.  

 

CLOSING ORDER (or, INDICTMENT)

 

of Co-Investigating Judges You Bunleng and Marcel Lemonde

15 September 2010

  PART THREE: LEGAL FINDINGS 

 

XIII. CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY 

 

A.  "CHAPEAU" ELEMENTS 

 

B. UNDERLYING OFFENCES CONSTITUTING CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

   

Other Inhumane Acts Through Enforced Disappearances

1470. The constituent elements of the crime against humanity of other inhumane acts through acts of enforced disappearance have been established.⁵²⁷⁶ These facts concern the enforced disappearance of persons at the security centres at Koh Kyang, Kok Kduoch, Kraing Ta Chan, the North Zone security centre, Phnom Kraol, Prey Damrei Srot, Sang and Wat Kirirum. The legal elements of enforced disappearance have also been established in regard to the worksites at 1^st January Dam, Kampong Chhnang Airport, Srae Ambel, Tram Kok Cooperatives and Trapeang Thma Dam. The legal elements of enforced disappearance have also been established in regard to the treatment of Vietnamese and in regard to Phases 2 and 3 of forced transfer.

1471. With respect to the actus reus, victims endured great suffering, or serious mental suffering or injury or a serious attack on human dignity as a result, on one hand, of the arrest, detention or abduction of loved ones and others in conditions which placed them outside of the protection of the law, and on the other hand, the refusal to provide access to, or convey information on the fate or whereabouts of such persons, saying that the perpetrators acted with the authorization and the support of the State or of "Angkar".

1472. The main modus operandi of enforced disappearances consisted of the authorities of Democratic Kampuchea putting in place measures designed to conceal the fate of individuals who had disappeared by ensuring that witnesses did not reveal information about them, for example by taking victims away at night so that others would not know how or when they disappeared and also by using loudspeakers to mask the sound of executions.

1473. None of the witnesses mentioned any system of recording or registering the personal details of the persons taken away that would have been accessible to the public, or any other procedural protections during the arrest, abduction or detention of those who disappeared, such that the families of these individuals did not know what subsequently happened to them.

1474. Aside from withholding information, the authorities provided evidently false reasons to justify the absence of those who disappeared, stating for example that they had been sent "to see Angkar", sent "to a meeting", or sent "to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to become diplomats", sent to "study"or sent for "re-education".

1475. Regarding the mens rea, the perpetrators were aware of the factual circumstances that establish the gravity of their acts, as demonstrated by evidence which shows that intentional measures were taken in order to conceal the fate of people who had disappeared who, in most cases, were killed thereafter.

1476. These activities reached a degree of seriousness comparable to that of other crimes against humanity. The perpetrators threatened people who asked or who had information, so that people were too afraid to ask questions. The climate of uncertainty and terror that the disappearances generated facilitated other arrests.

1477. These incidences of enforced disappearance, by their widespread and systematic nature, were part of the attack against the civilian population, and this was known to the perpetrators. Moreover, many witnesses report comparable cases of enforced disappearances falling outside the crime scenes included in the judicial investigation, further confirming the widespread character of the enforced disappearances.

1478. The enforced disappearances formed an integral part of the means used to achieve the common purpose aimed at the elimination of "enemies"; their systematic character as well as their general commission in the whole country clearly indicates that they were decided and co-ordinated by the CPK leadership within the framework of a common purpose.