A foreign journalist watches Nam Mon (right), a survivor of Khmer Rouge’s prison S-21, on a livefeed TV at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), in Phnom Penh yesterday Tuesday 14/7/2009
A Khmer Rouge survivor yesterday told Cambodia’s war crimes trial she saw the regime’s prison chief kill her two uncles—the first testimony that Duch executed detainees at the main jail.
Nam Mon told the UN-backed court she witnessed Duch, known to her during the Khmer Rouge’s 1975-79 rule as Brother East, killing her uncles while she worked as a medic at Tuol Sleng, the central torture centre and prison.
While Duch, real name Kaing Guek Eav, has admitted responsibility for overseeing the torture and extermination of around 15,000 people who passed through the prison, he denies personally killing anyone.
But 48-year-old Nam Mon said: “Outside the gate, near the coconut tree, both my uncles were ordered to kneel down and they were beaten and killed. I was shocked but I did not do anything”.
“I saw this Brother East use a metal bar about half a metre long to beat those people underneath a coconut tree,” she added.
“After they were killed... I was terrified, I could no longer speak and I could not concentrate on my work any longer”.
Asked by Judge Nil Nonn whether she had any questions for Duch, Nam Mon said: “Are you going to deny the truth of the facts that I have said in front of the chamber?”
Duch, 66, responded that Nam Mon could not have worked at Tuol Sleng because no female medics were employed there.
“Yes, I acknowledge they suffered, she suffered, but not at (Tuol Sleng),” he said. “All the names that she provided, when I checked the list (of detainees), it’s non-existent. There’s no evidence at all.”
Recognised as a civil claimant in the case against Duch, Nam Mon was revealing her story in public for the first time, her lawyer said last week.
However, judges have cast doubt on the authenticity of several civil claimants who have testified that they were at Tuol Sleng.
Earlier yesterday, Nam Mon was comforted by a court-appointed psychiatrist while she identified chilling black and white photos of her parents, three brothers and a sister-in-law whom she said were imprisoned and executed at Tuol Sleng.
“This is the photo of my father the moment he was dying,” Nam Mon said after being shown an image of an emaciated man lying down, staring into the air. She told the court on Thursday that one of her brothers had been ordered to kill her father. Her testimony was adjourned last week when she began to weep uncontrollably.
Nam Mon said that her two elder brothers were guards at Tuol Sleng before her family was killed at the notorious jail, while she initially lived and worked there before being interrogated herself.
“I treated the sick. I saw prisoners who were beaten and interrogated... I only saw the wounds and the bleeding on bodies of prisoners while I treated them,” Nam Mon said yesterday. Duch begged for forgiveness near the start of his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity after accepting responsibility for his role overseeing the jail.
But he has consistently rejected claims by prosecutors that he held a central leadership role in the Khmer Rouge.
Led by Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the Khmer Rouge emptied Cambodia’s cities in a bid to forge a communist utopia. Up to two mn people were executed or died of starvation, overwork or torture. Four other former Khmer Rouge leaders are currently in detention and expected to face trial next year. AFP
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