Duch: ordered mass executions
Remains of some of the thousands of Cambodians who died in the killing fields lie in an abandoned school near Phnom PenhBy Thomas Bell, South East Asia Correspondent
27/02/2008
The chief executioner of the Khmer Rouge wept when he returned to the place where thousands died on his orders.
Around 15,000 people are believed to have been taken from the S-21 torture centre in Phnom Penh, where Duch was commandant, to Choeung Ek just outside the city, known as the killing fields.
While Duch sat smoking on a mat under the trees they were made to kneel at the edge of pits and clubbed on the back of the neck to save bullets.
Duch, 65, a born-again Christian whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, wept and prayed before the tree on which his subordinates dashed out the brains of babies and small children.
"He cried and apologised to the victims," said a policeman who was present during the preliminary session of the international tribunal, which is run under the joint auspices of the Cambodian government and the United Nations.
A group of 80 judges, witnesses and court staff took part in the visit. Duch, whose full trial will begin in the summer, intends to plead not guilty to the murders on the grounds that he was following orders. He and four others face life imprisonment if convicted.
The site at Choeung Ek is popular with tourists. At the gate, amputees who were victims of Cambodia's long civil war, sit begging for change.
As visitors pass between pits marked "Mass grave of 166 victims without heads", and "Mass grave of more than 100 victims, children and women whose majority were naked", they step over the ragged clothes of the dead, which are emerging from the ground.The skulls of 8,000 victims have been placed in a monument at the site.
More than 1.7 million people are thought to have been executed or died as a result of torture, disease, starvation and overwork during the Maoist regime of the Khmer Rouge, which lasted from 1975 to 1979.
The five most senior surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge are now in custody, waiting trail. Duch, a former maths teacher, was arrested in 1999 after being tracked down by Nic Dunlop, the Irish journalist and photographer.
"This is just one more piece in building a case file. It can be very useful in court to have a visual representation of the site in question," said Helen Jarvis, a court official.
The proceedings will continue today at Tuol Sleng, the Phnom Penh high school, which was transformed into the S-21 torture centre and is now a genocide museum lined with the photographs of its victims.
Of the 15,000 inmates only a dozen survived. One of them is the painter Van Nath, who was put to work in the jail making portraits of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader. Pol Pot died in 1998.
In an interview he gave to The Daily Telegraph recently, Van Nath recalled that Duch often visited the workshop to check his paintings.
He said: "At the time I didn't know that Duch was killing people. I was scared of Duch not because of the power he had but because of his education and the way he spoke. He was like a professor. Of course if he apologises and regrets what he did that means something.
"I'm not looking for torture like he did to me, or for him to be killed like he killed other people. He should apologise to his victims so they can rest in peace," said Van Nath.
27/02/2008
The chief executioner of the Khmer Rouge wept when he returned to the place where thousands died on his orders.
Around 15,000 people are believed to have been taken from the S-21 torture centre in Phnom Penh, where Duch was commandant, to Choeung Ek just outside the city, known as the killing fields.
While Duch sat smoking on a mat under the trees they were made to kneel at the edge of pits and clubbed on the back of the neck to save bullets.
Duch, 65, a born-again Christian whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, wept and prayed before the tree on which his subordinates dashed out the brains of babies and small children.
"He cried and apologised to the victims," said a policeman who was present during the preliminary session of the international tribunal, which is run under the joint auspices of the Cambodian government and the United Nations.
A group of 80 judges, witnesses and court staff took part in the visit. Duch, whose full trial will begin in the summer, intends to plead not guilty to the murders on the grounds that he was following orders. He and four others face life imprisonment if convicted.
The site at Choeung Ek is popular with tourists. At the gate, amputees who were victims of Cambodia's long civil war, sit begging for change.
As visitors pass between pits marked "Mass grave of 166 victims without heads", and "Mass grave of more than 100 victims, children and women whose majority were naked", they step over the ragged clothes of the dead, which are emerging from the ground.The skulls of 8,000 victims have been placed in a monument at the site.
More than 1.7 million people are thought to have been executed or died as a result of torture, disease, starvation and overwork during the Maoist regime of the Khmer Rouge, which lasted from 1975 to 1979.
The five most senior surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge are now in custody, waiting trail. Duch, a former maths teacher, was arrested in 1999 after being tracked down by Nic Dunlop, the Irish journalist and photographer.
"This is just one more piece in building a case file. It can be very useful in court to have a visual representation of the site in question," said Helen Jarvis, a court official.
The proceedings will continue today at Tuol Sleng, the Phnom Penh high school, which was transformed into the S-21 torture centre and is now a genocide museum lined with the photographs of its victims.
Of the 15,000 inmates only a dozen survived. One of them is the painter Van Nath, who was put to work in the jail making portraits of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader. Pol Pot died in 1998.
In an interview he gave to The Daily Telegraph recently, Van Nath recalled that Duch often visited the workshop to check his paintings.
He said: "At the time I didn't know that Duch was killing people. I was scared of Duch not because of the power he had but because of his education and the way he spoke. He was like a professor. Of course if he apologises and regrets what he did that means something.
"I'm not looking for torture like he did to me, or for him to be killed like he killed other people. He should apologise to his victims so they can rest in peace," said Van Nath.
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