New Zealander Gives Testimony at Duch Trial

By VOA Khmer, Yann Ker
Video Editor: Manilene Ek
27 August 2009

The brother of a New Zealand man tortured and killed by the Khmer Rouge on Monday (August 17) had a courtroom confrontation with the man who had him executed, wishing him a similar gruesome fate.

Kerry Hamill was 28 when he was captured by the Khmer Rouge after his yacht was blown off course into Cambodian waters in 1978. He and a shipmate were taken to Phnom Penh's notorious S-21 prison.

About a dozen Westerners were among the estimated 16-thousand people held there before being put to death in 1975-79.

His brother, Rob Hamill, wept as he testified on Monday at the genocide trial of S-21's commander, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch.

Rob Hamil: “Duch, at times I have wanted to smash you, to use your words. In the same way that you smashed so many others. At times I've imagined you shackled, stabbed, whipped and clubbed viciously, viciously! I have imagined your scrotum electrified, being forced to eat your own faeces, being nearly drowned and having your throat cut."

Earlier this week, Duch asked the Cambodian people to give him "the harshest punishment." Duch is being tried for crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture.

Up to 16-thousand people were tortured under his command and later killed during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-1979 rule. Only a handful survived.

Duch later became an evangelical Christian and worked for international aid organisations after the ouster of the Khmer Rouge. Duch is the first of five senior Khmer Rouge figures scheduled to face long-delayed trials and the only one to acknowledge responsibility for his actions. His trial, which started in March, is expected to finish by the end of the year. He could face a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Cambodia has no death penalty.

Information for this report was provided by APTN.

New Zealand relative damns Duch at Khmer Rouge trial

August 21, 2009
ABC Radio Australia

Hundreds who have been watching the trial live and the many thousands viewing it on television in Cambodia... its been another emotional week of testimony. Among the Cambodian civil parties who spoke was New Zealand Olympic rower Robert Hamill also addressed the court. His brother Kerry was one of three foreigners captured, tortured, and eventually killed by the Khmer Rouge when their yacht was blown off course and into Cambodian waters in 1978.

Presenter: Liam Cochrane
Speakers: Robert Hamill, brother of Khmer Rouge victim; Kaing Guek Eav, S-21 torture prison chief better known as Duch

Click here to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

Rob Hamill faces brother's killer

18/08/2009
By JEFF NEEMS
Waikato Times (New Zealand)

Hamilton man Rob Hamill faced his brother's alleged killer in a Cambodian court yesterday, but the former torture camp commandant claims he can not remember him.

Speaking to the Times from Phnom Penh shortly after testifying at the UN-backed trial of Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch and the head of the notorious S21 prison camp under Pol Pot's Khymer Rouge regime, Mr Hamill was not surprised by Duch's claim he did not recall Mr Hamill's older brother Kerry.

Kerry Hamill is believed to have been one of a handful of Westerners killed in the camp between 1975 and 1979. Kerry Hamill's yacht strayed into Cambodian waters in 1978, and while exact details of his death remain unknown, he is believed to have been tortured and executed while in S21.

Duch has testified he carried out orders from the regime's late leader Pol Pot, and Mr Hamill said Duch continued with that defence when he gave the equivalent of a victim impact statement in Phnom Penh's Extraordinary Chambers of Courts of Cambodia.

"His out is that he was just taking orders. It was either that, or be killed himself."

An emotionally drained Mr Hamill said there was sense of relief at having made his statement, aimed at court judges and detailing the huge impact of his brother's death on the Hamill family. He was able to make extensive eye contact with Duch, who sat just metres from him.

"It was very difficult, but he was certainly very attentive," Mr Hamill said. "I didn't look at him that much when I was making my statement - I was really looking up at the judges."

Reading his statement from notes, Mr Hamill said he was able to look directly at Duch when he made "a couple of pointed comments", while Mr Hamill's wife Rachel noticed Duch nervously fidgeting during particularly emotional parts of her husband's testimony.

"I had some emotional moments in there," Mr Hamill said of his appearance, which lasted just under an hour. "I was wiping away a few tears as I was telling the story."

"Whenever I said things that were emotionally charged about him (Duch), he was shuffling, pretty nervy..."

Mr Hamill believed Duch to be a "very sharp cookie, playing the court really well". Mr Hamill was able to directly question Duch, and asked him how long his brother was interned for.

"But the answer I got was that he (Duch) didn't know...which was a bit disappointing. He just didn't remember."

"The longer Kerry was in there, the worse it would've been," Mr Hamill said. "I know he was in there for at least two months."

Ad Feedback Mr Hamill said Duch recalled Kerry Hamill's British crewmate John Dewhurst, "and he just said they both were killed at the same time".

"He said specifically he remembered the British man, but not my brother. It is disappointing, and I find it hard to believe...they were brought in at the same time, two Westerners."

Mr Hamill said although somewhat surreal, events at the trial had transpired much as he had expected. While he had not neccessarily gained any more information about his brother's death, Mr Hamill said he felt it was significant to represent the estimated 17,000 people killed in the camp, and their families.

Feedback from lawyers participating in the trial was that Mr Hamill's statement and questioning had made a strong impact on the judges.

"It was pretty powerful, being in there, and being part of that. I really felt I got the message across that I wanted to."

The trip to Cambodia for the trial will be an integral part of a documentary on Mr Hamill's search for justice for his brother, entitled Brother No 1.

Khmer Rouge court hears NZ family despairKerri Ritchie, Auckland

Tuesday, August 18, 2009
ABC Radio Australia

A New Zealand man whose brother was murdered by the Khmer Rouge has told a war crimes court in Cambodia he felt like killing the head of the torture prison where his brother died.

New Zealander Rob Hamill has come face to face with Kaing Guek Eav, who is standing trial before the tribunal.

Hamill, an Olympic rowing competitor, slowly read out a victim impact statement to the court in Phnom Penh.

His brother, Kerry, was one of three foreigners killed by the Khmer Rouge when their yacht was blown off course into Cambodian waters in 1978.

The prison chief, known simply as Duch, is accused of overseeing the torture and execution of 15,000 people.

Mr Hamill told Duch he had ruined his family.

"At times I've imagined you shackled, starved and clubbed, viciously, viciously."

Duch has admitted running the jail but insists he was not a big boss in the Khmer Rouge.

Foreign relatives of victims testify at Khmer Rouge tribunal

Mon, 17 Aug 2009
DPA

Phnom Penh - The trial of former Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch heard testimony Monday from a New Zealand Olympic rower whose brother was tortured and murdered in 1978 in Phnom Penh. More than 15,000 people are thought to have been killed at S-21, the prison that Duch ran in Phnom Penh. Nearly all of those killed were Cambodians.

The tribunal heard earlier from a Frenchwoman whose Cambodian diplomat husband was killed at S-21 in 1977. Their daughter also testified on Monday at the joint UN-Cambodian tribunal.

Rob Hamill told the court that his family was destroyed by the death of his brother, the oldest of five siblings.

"My family's disintegration is my disintegration," he told the court.

Hamill said the family believed that his brother's yacht, which he was sailing around South-East Asia with two friends, was blown off course during a storm in August 1978 on its way to Bangkok.

He said one of the three yachtsmen, Canadian Stuart Glass, was shot and killed when a Khmer Rouge gunboat attacked their sloop. The other two - Kerry Hamill and Briton John Dewhirst - were taken ashore and transferred to S-21.

Both men were tortured to extract confessions that they were working for the CIA against the Cambodian state, and were then executed, the court heard.

Hamill, who appeared at the tribunal as one of a group of 18 civil parties, broke down repeatedly during his testimony.

"It was evident that their testimonies were obtained under torture," Hamill said, adding that brother's confession used joke names for his supposed CIA superiors.

Hamill said one such name was Colonel Sanders, the founder of fast-food chain KFC. Other names were of family friends, and one even referred cryptically to their mother.

Earlier, French national Martine Lefeuvre, 56, told the court how her husband, a Cambodian diplomat called Keth Ouk, returned to Phnom Penh in 1977 and then disappeared.

Keth Ouk, who was the third secretary at the Cambodian embassy in Senegal, had received a letter in early 1977 from the Cambodian government asking him to come back and help rebuild the country. He left behind his wife and two young children, aged four and two.

Lefeuvre never heard from him again. In late 1979, she met a Cambodian friend in a refugee camp on the Thai border who told her that her husband had been murdered two years earlier in S-21, the camp that Duch ran.

The friend told her that after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in early 1979 he had spent several months researching documents at S-21, the Khmer Rouge's main prison.

"He explained that it was an extermination camp," she testified. "He said he had found my husband's name on a list (of people murdered there)."

She returned to France and to break the news to her children.

"I had to tell my children that they must grow up without their daddy," she said breaking down. "My son, who was seven, and my daughter, who was four and a half, asked me every day: 'Have you seen Daddy? Will we see Daddy again?' I had to tell them, no, they will never see their daddy again."

The daughter of Lefeuvre and Keth Ouk also appeared as a civil witness Monday. Neary Ouk, who is now 34, said she last saw her father when she was 2 years old, and told how her only memory was of looking at his hand.

She told the court her father would always remain "a beautiful page in our history" but that the knowledge of what had happened to him was her "journey into hell."

"He returned to work on the reconstruction of Cambodia," she said. "He went back, and I grew up without a father."

Speaking of her visit to the former school in 1991, she told of her revulsion.

"They changed a school into a machine to crush humans. The sole purpose of S-21 was death," she said.

Given the chance to respond by the judge, Duch - whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav - asked for forgiveness from Lefeuvre "and all others who have lost loved ones in this regime."

"I do not deny my responsibility," he said.

As many as 2 million people are thought to have died from murder, illness and starvation under the Khmer Rouge regime from, known as Democratic Kampuchea, which ruled Cambodia between 1975-79.

NZ man seeks justice for brother at KRouge trial

Rob Hamill's brother Kerry was one of three foreigners who were murdered by the 1975-1979 communist movement

Tuesday, August 18, 2009
By Suy Se
AFP

PHNOM PENH — A New Zealand Olympic rower told Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court Monday how he had felt like killing the boss of the Khmer Rouge prison where his brother was killed by the regime.

Rob Hamill's brother Kerry was one of three foreigners who were murdered by the 1975-1979 communist movement after their yacht was blown off course and into Cambodian waters.

Hamill, who represented New Zealand at the 1996 Olympics, was testifying at the trial of jail chief Duch, who was accused of overseeing the torture and execution of about 15,000 people at the Tuol Sleng detention centre.

"At times I have wanted to smash you, to use your word, in the same way that you smashed so many others," he said. Duch has said that the Khmer Rouge used the official term "smash" to refer to killing its enemies.

"Today, in this court room, I am giving you all the crushing weight of emotion -- the anger, the grief, and the sorrow. I am placing this emotional burden on your head," Hamill said.

Kerry Hamill, 27, was sailing through the Gulf of Thailand in 1978 with two friends, Canadian Stuart Glass and Briton John Dewhirst, when their yacht was intercepted by a Cambodian patrol boat.

Glass was shot dead immediately while Dewhirst and Hamill were taken for interrogation and torture at Tuol Sleng for two months, during which they were forced to confess to being CIA agents. They were then killed.

Earlier Monday, Frenchwoman Martine Lefeuvre wept as she told the tribunal how her Cambodian husband was tricked into returning from overseas to die at Tuol Sleng.

She said her French-educated spouse, 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.

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

"I came before this chamber in order to ask for justice to be done for this barbaric crime," the 56-year-old nurse told the court, demanding the "maximum sentence" for Duch.

Duch, a 66-year-old former maths teacher whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, said he felt remorse for their suffering.

"I was such a coward at that time. I did not dare to assist anybody," Duch told Hamill.

Duch has previously accepted responsibility for running the jail and begged forgiveness, but insists that he did not have a central role in the Khmer Rouge hierarchy.

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.

Brother of NZ victim rages at Khmer Rouge trial

A Cambodian man watches television at a restaurant in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, Aug. 17, 2009 as it shows Rob Hamill from New Zealand whose brother 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)

Tuesday, August 18, 2009
By SOPHENG CHEANG
AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The brother of a New Zealander tortured and killed by the Khmer Rouge three decades ago told the man who ordered the execution on Monday that he wished him a similarly gruesome fate.

Kerry Hamill was 28 when his yacht was blown off course into Cambodian waters in 1978, and he was captured by the radical communist regime. He and a shipmate, Briton John Dewhirst, were taken to Phnom Penh's S-21 prison and later killed.

Kerry's brother, Rob, wept as he testified at the trial of S-21's commander, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch — the first of five senior Khmer Rouge defendants to be tried by a U.N.-assisted tribunal and the only one to acknowledge responsibility for his actions.

"Duch, at times I have wanted to smash you, to use your words. The same way that you smashed so many others," Rob Hamill said, sitting in a suit and tie, his hands folded before him. "Smash" was the euphemism the Khmer Rouge used when ordering executions.

"At times, I have imagined you shackled, starved, whipped and clubbed, viciously. I have imagined your scrotum electrified, being forced to eat your own feces, being nearly drowned and having your throat cut," said Hamill, referring to some of the horrors faced by prisoners.

Duch sat behind him, expressionless.

"I have wanted that to be your experience, your reality. I have wanted you to suffer the way you made Kerry and so many others (suffer)," Hamill said.

About a dozen Westerners were among the estimated 16,000 people held at the prison before being killed. The communist regime's radical policies while in power from 1975-79 caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people nationwide by execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition.

Rob Hamill, 45, a rower who represented New Zealand at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, said his family learned of his brother's death 16 months after he disappeared. Their parents read in a newspaper that he was executed after two months at S-21.

"Death not by shipwreck, not by drowning or freak accident, but death by torture. Death by torture not over a few seconds or minutes or hours or days or weeks even," said Hamill.

Asked by judges for his response, Duch (pronounced DOIK) repeated his earlier testimony that he received orders to kill the Westerners and burn their bodies.

He asked for forgiveness from the victims' families, acknowledging that they had suffered miserably.

He said he was not offended by being blamed.

"Even if the people threw stones at me and caused my death, I would not say anything," he told the court.

Duch is charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and murder, and could face a maximum penalty of life in prison. Cambodia has no death penalty.

His trial is expected to wrap up by the end of the year.

Hamill gives emotional testimony in Cambodia

Emotional testimony given by trans-Atlantic rower Rob Hamill at a Cambodian war crimes trial into his brother's torture and murder

18 August 2009
NZ City

Trans-Atlantic rower Rob Hamill has testified at the war crimes trial in Cambodia of the Khmer Rouge commander Khaing Khek Iav, also known as "Comrade Duch."

Hamill's brother Kerry, who was aged 27, was tortured and killed by the Communist regime at the camp where Duch ruled, 31 years ago. He and two fellow sailors were snatched from their storm-blown yacht when it strayed into Cambodian waters in 1978.

Stuart Glass, a crew member from Canada was shot and Hamill and John Dewhirst from Britain were interrogated and tortured for two months and were then killed.

Rob Hamill has delivered his 13 page address to the Extraordinary Court of Cambodia, which is being run with the help of the UN. He spoke of the terrible impact the loss of Kerry had on his family.

Duch, who is now 66, has pleaded guilty to murder but claims he was following orders.

One of the five judges is former New Zealand Governor-General Dame Silvia Cartwright.

Hamill confronts Khmer Rouge commander

Tuesday August 18, 2009
Source: NZPA

Rob Hamill, brother of the New Zealander tortured and slain by the Communist regime in Cambodia 31 years ago, has had his day in court.

An emotional Hamill testified before the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Phnom Penh about the "incredible" impact the horrific death of his brother Kerry, 27, had on his family, a "massive and unquantifiable impact".

Hamill, former Olympic and long-distance rower, told NZPA he had waited a long time to confront his brother's killer and to tell the story about the impact on his parents and siblings.

Hamill's mother is now dead and his father is in a nursing home.

The New Zealander's wife Rachel and their two-year-old son were in the packed public gallery as Hamill spoke for a full hour.

Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch as he is known, the man responsible for Kerry Hamill's death, was in court and listened impassively to Hamill's testimony as it was translated.

Duch, 66, has pleaded guilty to murder but the five judges - New Zealander Dame Silvia Cartwright, a French national and three Cambodians - will decide Duch's innocence or guilt after hearing all the evidence.

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Dame Silvia was in court to hear Hamill who was accepted as a civil party.

Kerry Hamill was captured by the Khmer Rouge when the yacht on which he and friends were sailing strayed into Cambodian waters in August 1978.

Crewman Stuart Glass, a Canadian was shot while Hamill and Briton John Dewhirst were interrogated and tortured for two months before being killed in Phnom Penh's notorious Tuol Sleng Prison run by Duch.

Thousands of Cambodians were killed at the prison.

Duch has pleaded the same defence as some of the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials after World War 2, maintaining he was simply carrying out orders and would have been shot had he not done so.

Hamill says his parents were hugely affected by their son's appalling death.

"It changed them. They were never the same after it all happened," Hamill told the court. "They were terribly affected, as any parents would have been."

Hamill, 14 at the time of his brother's death, added: "The death of their first-born was the worst possible news for our family. He had not just been killed, he had been tortured."

He noted that Duch used the phrase "smash them", words meaning prisoners were to be tortured and then killed.

"I've wanted to smash Duch," he told NZPA.

Hamill says there was no provision for execution but he hoped that Duch would be given a life sentence "a real life sentence so he would spend the rest of his days in a cell.

"I'd be happy with that.

TVNZ's Miriama Kamo traveled to Cambodia for the war crime trials earlier in the year. Read her blogs under related items.

Kiwi tells Cambodian court of wanting to kill jail chief killer

18 August 2009
Radio New Zealand

New Zealander Rob Hamill has told Cambodia's United Nations-backed war crimes court how he had felt like killing the boss of the prison where his brother was murdered by the Khmer Rouge regime.

Mr Hamill's brother, Kerry, was one of three foreigners killed by the Khmer Rouge after their yacht was blown off course and into Cambodian waters in 1978.

Mr Hamill, an Olympic and transatlantic rower, is testifying at the trial of the jail chief, known simply as Duch, who is accused of overseeing the torture and execution of about 15,000 people.

Mr Hamill told Duch he wanted to smash him in the same way he smashed so many others.

Duch has said the Khmer Rouge used the term "smash" to refer to killing its enemies.