NZ man to confront dead brother's Cambodian jailer

Taiwan News
http://www.etaiwannews.com

Associated Press
2009-06-19

An Olympic rower from New Zealand whose brother was murdered by the Khmer Rouge said Friday he would confront the commander of the prison where his sibling died at a war crimes tribunal in Cambodia.
Rob Hamill, who won the trans-Atlantic rowing race in 1997 and represented New Zealand at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, said he would address Khmer Rouge official Kaing Guek Eav, known as Comrade Duch, at the tribunal in Phnom Penh before November.

"I'm one of only a dozen people taking the stand and possibly the only foreigner," Hamill told the Dominion Post newspaper.

Kerry Hamill was 28 when he was captured by the Khmer Rouge after his yacht was blown off course into Cambodian waters in 1978. Prison documents show there were up to 11 Westerners in Tuol Sleng prison Phnom Penh, also known as S-21.

Duch, who commanded S-21, testified Wednesday that Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot ordered the execution of four Westerners, including New Zealander Kerry Hamill.

"I received an order from my superiors that the four Westerners had to be smashed and burned to ashes. It was an absolute order from my superiors. Pol Pot ... personally ordered to burn the bodies," Duch (pronounced Doik) told the international tribunal.

Duch said the prisoners were an American, an Australian, a New Zealander and a Briton, members of a yacht crew captured in Cambodian waters.

In response to questioning from New Zealand judge Dame Silvia Cartwright, Duch denied reports that the four Westerners were burned alive. He said their bodies were burned near the prison after they were executed.

The U.N.-assisted tribunal is trying Duch for crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture. About 1.7 million Cambodians died from forced labor, starvation, medical neglect and executions under the radical regime.

Rob Hamill said it would be a privilege to address Duch and the tribunal.

"It's huge. It's an opportunity to face the man who killed my brother and tell him the effect it's had on my family and (the thousands) of others who died at that prison," he was quoted saying.

"The process of grieving hasn't taken its course and this is a part of that. I feel hatred. I want to try and forgive but I'm finding that hard at the moment," Rob Hamill told the newspaper.