Letter to Co-Investigating Judges and Co-Prosecutors of ECCC

Cambodian Action Committee for Justice & Equity
No: 3 Fountain Ave. Cranston RI, 02920 Web: www.cacje.com, Email: cacje@cacje.com

"CACJE’s mission is working & advocating for Social Justice & Human Equity"

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No: 0035/CACJE

Date: 16th Sptember 2008,

To: Mr. Yu Bun Leng and Mr. Marcel Lemonde, Co-Investigating Judges of ECCC; And
Ms. Chea Leang and Mr. Robert Petit, Co-Prosecutors of ECCC.

Address: National Road 4, Chaom Chau Commune, Dangkao District, Phnom Penh
P.O. Box 71, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tel: (855) 23 219 814, Fax: (855) 23 219 841

Object: Request to broaden and deepen the investigation to individual and group of high ranking officers who had ordered, had executed the mass slaughtering of thousand (s) people and who commanded the Santibal (Security forces) during the Khmer Rouge regime.

Cambodian Committee for Justice and Equity (CACJE) can’t accept the investigation report that made by Co-investigation Judges of an Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) that said in a statement on August 8, 2008 that its investigating judges issued the indictment upon ending their investigation of Kaing Guek Eav — also known as Duch — whose Phnom Penh prison was used as a torture center.

CACJE requests the ECCC to broaden and deepen its investigation to other individual and group of high ranking officers who had ordered or had executed the mass slaughtering of thousand and more people and those who commanded the Santibal (Security forces) during the Khmer Rouge regime.

Thousands of documents have been collected and hundreds of mass graves, prisons and memorials have been mapped by the Vietnam Experts and Research Committee of the Salvation Front (Renakse) during 1979, the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) and the Cambodian Genocide Program. These will be made available to the court

At Nuremberg Court, which was created immediately after the victory of the allied forces, the evidences can be reasonably established because the majority of evidences were recent, only less than four years old and the memory was still fresh while the evidences that the ECCC will use for its investigation and verdict were at least 33 years old and live witnesses did not yet participate fully and freely.

The bulk of evidences that the ECCC will use to decide on its investigation and its verdict came from the documents of Tuol Sleng Prison, S-21 which were deposed at Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-CAM) and constituted almost the whole archives of DC-CAM.

CACJE has some witnesses who still alive, they declare that when S-21 was liberated in January 1979 S-21 was empty. There was nothing inside. No bone, no archives, nothing. All the bones and skulls which were exposed now at S-21 were transported by trucks from village Laang Sala,
[Phnom Sam Pov] of Battambang Province. Those bones and skulls were not the ones belonging to people who were tortured and executed at S-21.

S-21 was close to Beung Trabek Prison. Beung Trabek Prison was under the power of Comrade Hong aka Hor Nam Hong. Beung Trabek Prison had tortured and slaughtered more than one hundred thousand people. Compared to Beung Trabek Prison, S-21 is nothing. It was a political decision to make S-21 more important than Beung Trabek Prison.

The bulk of documents, physical evidence, such as mass graves and former prisons, and statements and testimony by victims, witnesses and defendants were fabricated and doctored by Hanoi government officials.

For example, Ta KEU (aka Nhim Sophal), Ta KAO (aka Ros Ngim/Moul Sambath) and Ta PET (in charge of security forces) were respectively the number one, the number two and the number three of the Northwest region (Phumpheak Peay Yorp). Almost one million people have died/slaughtered in that region during the Khmer Rouge regime under their watch 1975-1977
June 1977, Ta KEU and Ta KAO fled with their 38 headquarter staff officers to Thailand. They escaped by cars and abandoned their cars at Bovel district city, Battambang Province, then, walked toward Thailand. The distance to Thailand border was one day walk. They lost their way and fell in Khmer Rouge border guard’s ambush in Anlong Thngan village. The fugitives were all killed. But according to Toul Sleng, S-21/DC-CAM files Ta KEU and Ta KAO were tortured and confessed and recorded a long report and then killed in Toul Sleng Prison, S-21.

April 21, 1975, Venerable Buddhist monk Chief PON SAMPHEACH, Col. Leng Raoul and others 19 Army officers surrendered to Khmer Rouge Army. KEO (Khmer Rouge Army Division commander), Saravuth (Khmer Rouge Army Brigade commander), Khleng (Khmer Rouge Army Brigade commander) backed up by 40 soldiers accepted their surrender. Then, they transported those surrendered people by cars to Veal Bekchan Battambang airport. Not far from the airport, the Khmer Rouge soldiers bind the surrendered people hands one by one and kill them all and buried their corps under a tall tree. But according to DC-CAM file, Venerable PON SAMPHEACH was tortured with confession and died at Toul Sleng Prison, S-21.

CACJE requests the ECCC to widen and deepen its investigation to all level of administration high ranking officers, top down, from head of state levels to village level, people who had ordered or had executed the order or participated to the execution of the order to kill/slaughter several thousand and more people in order to render justice to family members of the victims. At least five thousand of "people who had committed the crime against humanity" lived free now.

Sincerely,
Sourn Serey Ratha

Copy to: Chief Mission

 UNAKRT Office in New York
 Foreigner Embassy in Phnom Penh
 Local & International NGOs
 Local & International Media