Duch Shows Judges His Old Prison

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
27 February 2008

In the second day of tribunal "re-enactments," jailed Khmer Rouge cadre Duch on Wednesday toured the infamous prison he once supervised under the regime.

Neighbors stood in silence as a convoy, sirens wailing, carried Duch from his tribunal detention cell to the prison, where as many as 16,000 Cambodians were tortured at the center and later executed.

Many of the dead were buried at the Choeung Ek "killing fields," which Duch and tribunal officials visited Tuesday.

Officials said the tours, called "re-enactments," are part of the standard proceedings at the tribunal, where Duch has been charged with crimes against humanity for his role as chief of the prison.

Tight security prevented media coverage near the prison, in the center of Phnom Penh, as tribunal judges questioned Duch and witnesses at the now-popular tourist site.

"This onsite investigation allowed us to clarify the facts in order to describe the location better," tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said at the end of a full day. "The accused and witnesses, they moved with judges to different places in this compound, around the site, and each of them gave an explanation to what happened here 30 years ago."

Bun Thoeun, a 70-year-old with a house near Tuol Sleng, said he appreciated the efforts of the tribunal, especially in bringing Duch to the prison.

"But my suffering with Duch is still the same as before," he said. "Since Duch left Tuol Sleng in 1979, he has never returned to see his crime."

Ex-Khmer Rouge Official Revisits Notorious Torture Chamber

By VOA News
27 February 2008

A notorious Khmer Rouge leader returned to the prison where he oversaw the torture and murders of tens of thousands of Cambodians in the 1970s.

Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, led judges with a United Nations-backed tribunal on a tour of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison Wednesday in the capital of Phnom Penh. The 65-year-old jailer is expected to describe how he directed the gruesome operations at the former school.

An estimated 14,000 Cambodian men, women and children were imprisoned, tortured and killed at Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21. Only a few people are believed to have survived the ordeal.

Duch broke down in tears Tuesday as he led tribunal officials on a tour of the Cheoun Ek execution site outside Phnom Penh.

He is one of five former Khmer Rouge officials to be charged with crimes against humanity during the regime's four-year rule, which ended in 1979.

Nearly two million people died of overwork, starvation and disease as the Khmer Rouge emptied the cities and forced millions of Cambodians into agricultural cooperatives.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.

Khmer Rouge chief torturer weeps for 14,000 victims

Wed Feb 27, 2008
By Ek Madra

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - The chief Khmer Rouge torturer on Wednesday led judges who will try him for crimes against humanity around the jail where about 14,000 presumed opponents of the ruthless revolutionaries were killed under his supervision.

Reporters were kept well away from the Tuol Sleng high school which became the Khmer Rouge "S-21" jail, but the judges and other officials of the U.N.-backed tribunal due to try Pol Pot's chief henchmen probably blanched at the sight.

Now a museum, photographs of terrified prisoners taken on their arrival cover walls. Concrete floored rooms contain only a bare iron bedstead and torture equipment. Some still have dried blood on the floor.

Men, women, children and even a few foreigners accused of being CIA spies went into the jail. They were tortured and forced to write confession after confession -- most still carefully catalogued -- until jailers were satisfied.

Nearly all were then killed. Only a handful survived until an invading Vietnamese army took the city in January 1979, ending the Khmer Rouge "Year Zero" revolution to produce an agrarian utopia.

An estimated 1.7 million people were killed or died through overwork, starvation and disease during their four years in power and the tour of the jail was meant to give tribunal officials a sense of what went on there.

A film crew working for the tribunal, due to start actual trials in July, filmed Kaing Guek Eav, 66, known as Duch, as he told the story of the jail he ran for the Khmer Rouge regime, keeping meticulous records, witnesses said.

"He cried again as he walked into his old office. It seems he has remorse for his past life," a police officer who accompanied Duch said.

On Tuesday, Duch wept and prayed for the victims as led the tribunal staff to some of the 129 mass graves of people killed by the Khmer Rouge just outside Phnom Penh.

"I saw Duch kneel in front of the trees where Khmer Rouge soldiers smashed children to death," said a policeman who watched. "He cried and apologized to the victims."

Duch, detained in 1999 and now a Christian, is expected to be a key witness in the trials. His lawyers say he was only following orders.

The others arrested and charged with crimes against humanity are "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, right hand man to Pol Pot who died in 1998, Khieu Samphan, president under the regime, Ieng Sary, its foreign minister, and his wife.

All face life in jail.

Many Cambodians want to hear what Duch will have to say in court.

"I still do not understand why Duch jailed me, killed my wife and our baby," said Chum Manh, 78, one of the few survivors of Tuol Sleng.

(Editing by Michael Battye and Sanjeev Miglani)

Detained Khmer Rouge chief torturer revisits living nightmare of his past atrocities

Bou Meng, a survivor of Tuol Sleng (S-21) (Photo: DC-Cam)

Wednesday, February 27, 2008
The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: A detained Khmer Rouge official faced his past atrocities Wednesday during a return to the prison he directed where thousands were tortured before being sent for execution in the 1970s.

Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, was taken to the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison by Cambodia's U.N.-assisted tribunal investigating a case against him.

Duch, 65, has been charged with crimes against humanity for his role as commandant of the Khmer Rouge's largest torture facility. He is one of five former high-ranking Khmer Rouge officials being held for trial by the tribunal.

Three of the S-21 prison survivors who are still alive said they were invited to join the visit Wednesday. They said they do not harbor anger toward Duch anymore, but, if given an opportunity to face him during the visit, they would ask him why they had been imprisoned and tormented.

Bou Meng, 67, said he and his wife, Ma Yoeun, were both put in S-21 prison in 1977 and that his wife was later executed.

"I just want to ask him what she may have done wrong that they had to kill her. Where is my wife?" said Bou Meng, who was spared because he was a painter and painting Pol Pot's portrait.

Pol Pot, the late Khmer Rouge leader, died in 1998.

Duch has been detained since July last year pending long-delayed trials, which the tribunal says will start this year.

The S-21 prison, also known as Tuol Sleng, is now a genocide museum. Its walls are lined with grim pictures of the prisoners who died there.

An estimated 1.7 million people died during the 1975-79 communist Khmer Rouge regime, which cut off contact with the outside world and forced the entire population into agricultural collectives, leading to starvation and disease.

Some 16,000 men, women and children were believed to have been held at S-21, now the Tuol Sleng genocide museum. Only 14 are thought to have survived.

Duch's return to the S-21 prison was his first in nearly 30 years since the Khmer Rouge regime was toppled from power by an invading Vietnamese army.

He was accompanied by tribunal officials in a so-called reenactment that involves taking the accused to the crime scene to be questioned about what happened in the past. The event was closed to the public and media.

"He is revisiting his past atrocities although he is not going to see blood stains or hear the scream of prisoners any more," said Youk Chhang, the director of Documentation Center of Cambodia, a center researching the Khmer Rouge atrocities.

"Tuol Sleng is a living nightmare for us," Youk Chhang said.

On Tuesday, Duch was moved to tears as he led the officials through the "killing field" at Choeung Ek, a site outside of the capital where most of S-21 prisoners were executed and dumped in shallow mass graves.

Reach Sambath, a tribunal spokesman, said Duch wept during the 3 1/2 hour visit as "the accused explained what happened ... when he was the chief of S-21."

"We noticed that he was feeling pity, tears were rolling down his face two or three times," Reach Sambath said.

He said Duch was especially moved when he stood before a tree with a sign describing how executioners disposed of their child victims by bashing their heads against its trunk.

KRouge survivor to confront torture centre tormentor

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (Photo: AP)

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — The man who ran Cambodia's notorious Tuol Sleng torture machine returned there Wednesday for the first time in nearly 30 years where he was to confront some of the very few who survived.

Only around a dozen of the estimated 16,000 people who were herded, bound and blindfolded, into one of the Khmer Rouge's most horrific killing centres are known to have lived through the ordeal.

One of them, Chum Mey, said he was ready to confront his chief tormentor, prison chief Duch, who returned Wednesday to the former school turned torture centre which he ran with brutal efficiency during Cambodia's 1970s genocide.

Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, is one of five former Khmer Rouge leaders facing UN-backed trials for atrocities allegedly committed under the communists' rule.

Judges were to ask Duch, a 65 year-old former maths teacher, to walk them through Tuol Sleng's dilapidated class rooms, re-enacting for them the daily routine that helped shape his alleged crimes, officials said.

"This is to clarify the situation," tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath told AFP Wednesday, adding that a number of Tuol Sleng survivors and former guards would also be present.

Each side would be able to confront or question the other through the judges, he said, shortly before Duch was brought to the prison under armed police guard.

"An on-site investigation or 'reconstruction' is a normal investigative action," the tribunal said in a statement issued earlier.

But it will be anything but normal for Chum Mey, a mechanic who like other Tuol Sleng survivors was spared only because he possessed a skill that was useful to his captors.

For decades the terror of the Khmer Rouge years has invaded his quiet life on the outskirts of the capital Phnom Penh. On Wednesday, that bitter black shadow was to take form again.

"I want to talk to him. I want the judges and prosecutors to see where I was tortured," he told AFP late Tuesday, anticipating his meeting with Duch.

"If they do not see that this place is real, then anything I say to them is meaningless."

For Chum Mey, the exercise of forcing Duch to return to this scene of evil is a bid to deprive him of the denials that have become so common among former top Khmer Rouge officials, most of whom refuse to take responsibility for the apocalypse that engulfed Cambodia between 1975 and 1979.

Up to two million people died of starvation and overwork, or were executed by the Khmer Rouge, which dismantled modern Cambodian society in its effort to forge a radical agrarian utopia.

Cities were emptied and their populations exiled to vast collective farms, while schools were closed, religion banned and the educated classes targeted for extermination.

Duch, a Christian who was seized by Cambodian authorities in 1999 and held at a military prison until his transfer to the tribunal on July 31, is charged with crimes against humanity.

"The re-enactment is good, it means he (Duch) cannot say he did not do anything. I want him to show the judges the places of torture, show them where he gave the orders to bring people to be executed," Chum Mey said.

"I want him to recall the stories and answer everything."

Duch, who has not denied his Tuol Sleng role, took court officials Tuesday through another of the regime's monuments to brutality, the Choeung Ek killing fields where as many as 20,000 people -- most of them prisoners at Tuol Sleng -- were murdered.

There he knelt and prayed several times, weeping for the regime's victims, Reach Sambath said, calling the visit a significant step towards justice.

Forgiveness, however, might be a harder thing to wrestle from the living, Chum Mey said.

"For me, if you, Duch, do not reveal what happened, I will not forgive you," he said.

A Tearful Duch Revisits 'Killing Fields'

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
26 February 2008

Jailed Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch cried several times Tuesday as he toured a notorious site of mass graves on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, a tribunal official said.

Duch, who has been charged with crimes against humanity, toured the Choeung Ek "killing fields," with tribunal judges, witnesses and lawyers, as part of proceedings against him.

"We saw Duch express his regret for the dead victims, and Duch's tears fell two or three times," tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said after the re-enactment. "Before he left, he prayed for the dead victims, at the stupa of skulls, and he cried."

Duch and witnesses exchanged questions and answers in front of prosecutors, investigating judges and lawyers, Reach Sambath said, but he declined to give further details.

Thousands of Cambodians were buried at Choeung Ek after torture and execution, allegedly under the supervision of Duch, whose real name is Kaing Khek Iev, during the Khmer Rouge regime.

Skulls of the dead are piled within a glass-cased stupa at the "killing fields," now a popular tourist site.

Khmer Rouge jailer to return to infamous prison [on Wednesday]

27/02/2008
ABC Radio Australia

The Cambodian and UN court investigating the Khmer Rouge genocide in the 1970s will see the accused jailer return to the notorious prison he ran in Phnom Penh on Wednesday.

Officials say reconstruction of his actions before tribunal judges is a normal part of the tribunal's ongoing investigation.

As South East Asia Correspondent Karen Percy reports Kaing Guek Eav otherwise known as Comrade Duch will visit Phnom Penh's Tuol Sleng prison.

He will join two co-investigating judges from the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, the tribunal which is investigating and prosecuting those responsible for the Khmer Rough genocide.

An estimated 16-thousand Cambodians were detained and tortured at the prison, and then taken to fields where they were murdered.

The Khmer Rouge ran Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 under the model of an agrarian cooperative. During that time, one-point-seven million people were killed or died of starvation.

Khmer Rouge leader 'enacts role'

Tuesday, 26 February 2008
BBC News

Former Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, has been taken to one of Cambodia's killing fields to re-enact his alleged actions.

The visit to Choeung Ek, where some 16,000 people were buried after being tortured, is part of investigations by the UN-backed genocide tribunal.

Duch is the first of five senior Khmer Rouge officials to be charged.

The Khmer Rouge regime ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 and is blamed for more than one million deaths.

Duch, who is now in his 60s, ran the notorious Tuol Sleng jail in Phnom Penh under the Khmer Rouge, and is accused of overseeing the torture and killing of inmates.

He was driven to Choeung Ek, 10km (six miles) south of the capital Phnom Penh, in a heavily guarded convoy.

The re-enactment was closed to the public and the media.

It is not known if any survivors were witnessing Duch's version of what happened.

Duch was due to go through a similar re-enactment at the former Tuol Sleng jail - now a genocide museum - on Wednesday.

He was arrested and detained in July 2007. In December, a court dismissed an appeal for bail by his lawyers who argued that he was held without charge under the jurisdiction of another court for eight years.

A date for the trial has yet to be set.

Five senior Khmer Rouge officials are now in the custody of the tribunal.

Those also facing charges include Nuon Chea, second-in-command of the late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, the former foreign and social affairs ministers Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, and former head of state Khieu Samphan.

Pol Pot died in 1998.

A mass grave site containing some thousand human skulls is seen behind a stupa, or religious monument, at Choeung Ek killing field in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008. The former head of a notorious Khmer Rouge torture center was moved to tears Tuesday when he was taken by Cambodia's genocide tribunal to Choeung Ek, the scene of his alleged crimes, a mass grave site that was one of the country's notorious "killing fields." (Heng Sinith / AP Photo)

Tue, Feb. 26, 2008
By KER MUNTHIT
Associated Press Writer

CHOEUNG EK, Cambodia -- The former head of a notorious Khmer Rouge torture center was moved to tears Tuesday when he was taken by Cambodia's genocide tribunal to one of the country's notorious "killing fields" to which he is accused of sending thousands of people to their deaths, an official said.

Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, has been charged with crimes against humanity for his role three decades ago as commandant of the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison. He was taken into custody by the U.N.-assisted tribunal last year pending trial.

An estimated 1.7 million people died during the 1975-79 communist Khmer Rouge regime, which cut off contact with the outside world and forced the entire population into agricultural collectives, leading to starvation and disease. The regime tortured and executed untold thousands of people.

Duch, 65, is one of five former high-ranking Khmer Rouge officials being held for trial by the joint U.N.-Cambodian tribunal established in 2006 to finally bring aging top Khmer Rouge leaders to justice.

Tuesday's so-called re-enactment, closed to the public and media, was part of an investigative process that involves taking the accused to the crime scene to be questioned about what happened in the past.

But Duch wept during the 3 1/2 hour visit as "the accused explained what happened ... when he was the chief of S-21," according to Reach Sambath, a tribunal spokesman.

"We noticed that he was feeling pity, tears were rolling down his face two or three times," Reach Sambath said.

Duch was especially moved when he stood before a tree with a sign describing how executioners disposed of their child victims by bashing their heads against its trunk, the spokesman said.

There are several similar displays among the shallow graves that contain skeletal remains and ragged clothes.

Some 16,000 men, women and children who had been held at S-21 were killed and buried at Choeung Ek, now a memorial site that is a popular tourist attraction.

At the end of the tour, Duch clasped his hands together in prayer and cried again in front of a glass-fronted stupa, or Buddhist reliquary, crammed with 8,985 skulls, some bearing clear evidence of death by hammers, hoes, bamboo sticks and bullets, Reach Sambath said.

Duch had been driven in a heavily guarded convoy from the tribunal's detention center to Choeung Ek, about 6 miles south of Phnom Penh.

About 80 people, including judges, prosecutors, lawyers, representatives of the victims and witnesses, were on hand for the re-enactment, Reach Sambath said.

Among the witnesses were four former staff members of S-21, he said.

Duch is to visit S-21, now the Tuol Sleng genocide museum, on Wednesday. Of the thousands jailed there during the Khmer Rouge reign of terror, only 14 are believed to have survived.

The long-delayed genocide trials may start later this year. Many fear the group's surviving leaders could die before being brought to justice. The movement's chief, Pol Pot, died in 1998.

One of Duch's fellow defendants, former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, was hospitalized last week with persistent urinary tract problems, Reach Sambath said Monday.

"His illness is not life threatening, but doctors need to follow up on it a bit longer," he said.

Comrade Duch's excursion day out to Choeung Ek

Cambodian police officers block a road at Choeung Ek killing field in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008. The former head of a notorious Khmer Rouge torture center was moved to tears Tuesday when he was taken by Cambodia's genocide tribunal to the scene of his alleged crimes, a mass grave site at Choeung Ek, one of the country's notorious 'killing fields.' (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
Riot police stand guard while awaiting the arrival of a UN convoy carrying Duch, also known as Kaing Guek Eav, in Choeung Ek, 17 km (11 miles) south of Phnom Penh, February 26, 2008. Duch, who has confessed in interviews with Western reporters that he committed multiple atrocities as head of Phnom Penh's infamous Tuol Sleng, or S-21, interrogation centre, toured the site on Tuesday to re-enact his crimes for a UN-backed court. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
Tourists look at a mass grave for Khmer Rouge victims at Choeung Ek, 17 km (11 miles) south of Phnom Penh, February 26, 2008. Duch, also known as Kaing Guek Eav, who has confessed in interviews with Western reporters that he committed multiple atrocities as head of Phnom Penh's infamous Tuol Sleng, or S-21, interrogation centre, toured the site on Tuesday to re-enact his crimes for a UN-backed court. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
A UN convoy takes Duch, also known as Kaing Guek Eav, to Choeung Ek, 17 km (11 miles) south of Phnom Penh, February 26, 2008. Duch, who has confessed in interviews with Western reporters that he committed multiple atrocities as head of Phnom Penh's infamous Tuol Sleng, or S-21, interrogation centre, toured the site on Tuesday to re-enact his crimes for a UN-backed court. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
A convoy escorts Kaing Guek Eav, the former Khmer Rouge prison chief at Choeung Ek killing field, to the scene of his alleged crimes, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
A UN convoy takes Duch, also known as Kaing Guek Eav, to Choeung Ek, 17 km (11 miles) south of Phnom Penh, February 26, 2008. Duch, who has confessed in interviews with Western reporters that he committed multiple atrocities as head of Phnom Penh's infamous Tuol Sleng, or S-21, interrogation centre, toured the site on Tuesday to re-enact his crimes for a UN-backed court. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

Head of notorious Khmer Rouge torture center taken by court to mass grave site

By KER MUNTHIT
Associated Press Writer

CHOEUNG EK, Cambodia - The former head of a notorious Khmer Rouge torture center was taken Tuesday by Cambodia's genocide tribunal to one of the country's notorious "killing fields," mass graves to which he is accused of sending thousands of prisoners for execution.

Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, has been charged with crimes against humanity for his role as commandant of the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison, and was taken into custody by the U.N.-assisted tribunal last year pending a yet-to-be scheduled trial.

An estimated 1.7 million people died during the 1975-79 communist Khmer Rouge regime from starvation, overwork, lack of medical care and execution. Duch, 65, is one of five former high-ranking Khmer Rouge officials being held for trial.

Duch was driven in a heavily guarded convoy to Choeung Ek, the site of shallow mass graves about 10 kilometers (6 miles) south of the capital, Phnom Penh, for a re-enactment of his crimes.

Some 16,000 men, women and children who had been held at S-21 were killed and buried at Choeung Ek, now a memorial site that is a popular tourist attraction.

Tribunal officials also were on hand for the re-enactment, which was closed to the public and the media. It was believed that relatives of some of the Khmer Rouge's victims were also present, because they are officially part of the tribunal, but no officials were immediately available to confirm their presence.

Marcel Lemonde. a co-investigating judge of the tribunal, had said Friday that Duch would be assisted at the scene by his lawyers, with the prosecutors and a number of witnesses also present.

Choeung Ek houses a dramatic and disturbing memorial to the dead, a soaring glass-fronted stupa, or Buddhist reliquary, crammed with 8,985 skulls, some bearing clear evidence of death by hammers, hoes, bamboo sticks and bullets.

Skeletal remains and ragged clothes lie in surrounding shallow graves. Signs describe how the executioners disposed of their victims, including one on a tree explaining how they bashed the heads of children against its trunk.

The long-delayed genocide trials may start later this year. Many fear the group's surviving leaders could die before being brought to justice. The movement's chief, Pol Pot, died in 1998.

One of Duch's fellow defendants, former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, was hospitalized last week because of persistent urinary tract problems, a tribunal spokesman said Monday.

"His illness is not life threatening, but doctors need to follow up on it a bit longer," spokesman Reach Sambath said.

Duch is to visit S-21, now the Tuol Sleng genocide museum, on Wednesday. Of the 16,000 people thought to have been jailed there during Khmer Rouge rule, only 14 prisoners are believed to have survived.

Khmer Rouge jailer re-enacts alleged crimes in Cambodia

CHOEUNG EK, Cambodia (AFP) — Detained Khmer Rouge jailer Duch, who faces trial over Cambodia's 1970s genocide, was taken Tuesday to the regime's most notorious killing field to re-enact his alleged crimes for a UN-backed court.

Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, last visited the Choeung Ek execution site outside the capital Phnom Penh nearly 30 years ago, while he oversaw the Khmer Rouge's Tuol Sleng prison.

The prison was the Khmer Rouge's main torture centre, where some 16,000 men, women and children were brutalised before being murdered during the regime's repeated purges of its ranks.

Most of those killed at the prison were buried at Choeung Ek, which is now a macabre tourist attraction. Duch, who has not denied his role at Tuol Sleng, is expected to walk the court officials through his actions.

The reconstruction of his actions before court officials and a number of witnesses, believed to include Tuol Sleng survivors, was a normal part of the genocide tribunal's investigation, court officials said.

Tuesday's re-enactment and a similar reconstruction of Duch's actions Wednesday at Tuol Sleng are not open to the public but are being recorded and could eventually be released, the officials said.

The tribunal, which convened in July 2006, is investigating the atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 rule over Cambodia ahead of public trials expected to start this year.

Duch was seized by Cambodian authorities in 1999 and held at a military prison until his transfer to the UN-backed tribunal on July 31.

He is one of five former top cadres detained so far by the tribunal, and has been charged with crimes against humanity.

Up to two million people died of starvation and overwork, or were executed by the Khmer Rouge, which dismantled modern Cambodian society in its effort to forge a radical agrarian utopia.

Cities were emptied and their populations exiled to vast collective farms, while schools were closed, religion banned and the educated classes targeted for extermination.

Chea Thoy, who since 1999 has lived only a few hundred metres from Choeung Ek said the re-enactment would benefit young Cambodians who were born after the regime.

"This re-enactment will preserve what happened so that it will not be lost. We can keep it for the young people," said the 60-year-old, who lost 13 relatives including a husband under the Khmer Rouge.

Tuol Sleng (S-21) will be closed for KRT investigation

Saturday, February 23, 2008
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

The KR Tribunal issued a communiqué indicating that the work of the ECCC co-judges’ on the spot investigation at the location of the incident will take place on Tuesday 26 February in Choeung Ek, and on Wednesday 27 February at the Tuol Sleng museum (S-21). These two locations will be closed to the public during the 2 days above. A KRT judge told a foreign news agency that Kaing Kek Iev, aka Duch, the Tuol Sleng jail chief, will be taken out of jail and brought to the 2 locations above for re-enactment of the crimes he committed for the KRT officials to see.

Detained former Khmer Rouge chief executioner to re-enact alleged crimes

Friday February 22nd, 2008
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - The head of the main Khmer Rouge torture center will be taken from a detention cell to the former regime's "killing fields" next week to stage a re-enactment of his alleged crimes before officials of Cambodia's genocide tribunal, a judge said Friday.

Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, has been charged with crimes against humanity for his role as commandant of the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison and torture center in the capital, Phnom Penh.

The site is now a genocide museum.

The judge did not say how Duch will re-enact his crimes, citing the case's confidentiality. He said it was part of "a normal investigative action" in the case against Duch.

The Khmer Rouge have been blamed for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people.

Duch, 65, is one of five former high-ranking Khmer Rouge officials being held for trial.

When he was in charge of Tuol Sleng prison in the late 1970s as many as 16,000 men, women and children were tortured before being taken for execution in some fields just outside the capital.

Only 14 prisoners are thought to have survived S-21.

Duch will revisit the two sites Tuesday and Wednesday, Cambodia's UN-assisted tribunal said in a statement.

"For the re-enactment, Duch will be assisted by his lawyers. The co-prosecutors and a number of witnesses will participate," Marcel Lemonde, a co-investigating judge of the tribunal, told The Associated Press separately by e-mail.

The prison and killing fields will be closed to the public during the re-enactment and "strict security measures will be in place," the tribunal said in a statement.

Long-delayed genocide trials were scheduled to start later this year. Many fear the group's surviving leaders could die before being brought to justice. The movement's chief, Pol Pot, died in 1998.

Duch's Cambodian lawyer, Kar Savuth, declined to comment on his client's pending visit to the sites.

Duch to re-enact "killing fields" on 26-27 Feb

Khmer executioner to re-enact 'killing fields'

Story Highlights

• Former Khmer Rouge executioner to re-enact killing field crimes
• Re-enactment part of 'normal investigative action' in genocide tribunal
• It is to take place at Choeung Ek, a former Khmer Rouge mass grave site

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) -- A detained Khmer Rouge chief executioner will re-enact his crimes when he leads Cambodian genocide tribunal officials on a tour of former "killing fields" next week, officials said Friday.

The re-enactment is part of "a normal investigative action" in the case of Duch, said Marcel Lemonde, a co-investigating judge of Cambodia's U.N.-assisted tribunal, referring to Kaing Guek Eav, the former head of the Khmer Rouge's S-21 prison.

The tribunal, in a statement, called the tour "on-site investigations."

It said it will take place at Choeung Ek, a former Khmer Rouge mass grave site outside the capital, Phnom Penh, and at Tuol Sleng on February 26-27.