Khmer Rouge Tribunal: Norng Chanphal will not be Civil Party at Duch trial

Ka-set

By Stéphanie Gée

At the opening of the initial hearing of the trial of torturer Duch on February 17th, the Defence Team for Group 1 of Civil Parties pleaded in favour of the Civil Party application submitted by Norng Chanphal, who, as a child, was incarcerated at the Tuol Sleng detention and torture centre situated in the capital of Cambodia, shortly before the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. He submitted his dossier two days after the deadline set by the tribunal.

“Last Thursday”, Alain Werner said on the phone on March 19, “one of the lawyers for Group 1, the president of the Trial Chamber dismissed Norng Chanphal’s request as he estimated that granting a delay for that person and not for other candidates was not justified. Moreover, Norng Chanphal was unable to explain the reasons for the delay in submitting his application.” Conscious that appealing the decision would not change things, the lawyers chose to register their client on the additional list of witnesses whom they want the Court to hear, and handed in that document to the Court on Wednesday March 18th, which was the last date for such submission.

Besides, Alain Werner added that the film shot by Vietnamese protagonists at S-21 at the beginning of January 1979 when the Vietnamese troops arrived in Phnom Penh, showing children discovered in a centre emptied of its Khmer Rouge staff, was accepted by the Trial Chamber as evidence. Alain Werner is therefore confident that Norng Chanphal will be authorised to testify since that video, he says, “will allow to cross-check the story” of their client.

The Defence Team insisted on February 17th on the “rarity” of the testimony of this surviving child, but for his part, co-lawyer for Duch Francois Roux expressed his surprise about the sudden search for children who allegedly stayed at S-21 and were “miraculously found a few days before the trial!”