Mysterious identity of two S-21 victims still pending

Monday, 20 August 2012
Joseph Freeman
The Phnom Penh Post

The Documentation Center of Cambodia is trying to confirm the identities of two unnamed Westerners who died at the torture and prison centre S-21 and whose visages surfaced in a collection of recently donated photographs.

The new photos are believed to be the first ever of Westerners to emerge from S-21, said Youk Chhang, head of the documentation center.

Beforehand, there were only confessions that lacked accompanying images. Some 14,000 people were tortured and executed at the Phnom Penh prison, though estimates vary and it’s virtually impossible to pinpoint an exact count, as many documents were destroyed.

Out of all the dead, however, there are seven known survivors. Only two of them are still living. Confirmation of the identities is still pending, but after an initial review that involved ruling out other victims, Chhang said the men in the photos could be Christopher Edward DeLance, who was seized while sailing off the Cambodian coast in 1978, and Andre Gaston Courtigne, a former employee of the French Embassy, arrested more than two years earlier in 1976.

“Right now, we are searching for DeLance’s relatives in the States to confirm the photograph, and we have also been contacted by the French Embassy,” Youk said. Four Americans - DeLance, Michael Deeds, James Clark and Lance McNamara - died after being imprisoned S-21, where they were tortured into confessing to working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. DC-CAM provided a list to the Post of 79 foreigners detained or killed at S-21.

There are 11 from the countries of Australia, France, the U.S. and New Zealand. The majority were prisoners from Thailand and Vietnam. Not much is known about Courtigne.

A spokeswoman for the French embassy in Phnom Penh said she could not confirm his identity, and added that an investigation is under way. The photos were part of a sizeable anonymous donation of 1,427 images made to DC-CAM earlier this month.

Youk said the photos, which are the first of Westerners he has ever seen, serve as an important legacy. “The confession is significant, but the photo is a living person you know,” he said. “This is to tell us that you cannot destroy the human race completely. “But you just can’t. That’s why memory is so powerful.”