Phnom Penh (Cambodia). 25/01/2007: Nhem En, one of the six photographers at S-21, standing next to Joseph Mussomeli, then U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia, during a press conference. The minutes of his statement to the co-Investigating Judges were read in court, without him being summoned. The document was fiercely criticised by the defence as originating from “a man [who] deluded for years some journalists or even some researchers”©John Vink/Magnum
By Stéphanie Gée
05-08-2009
Yet another day that will not stay in the annals of Duch’s trial. After a long morning procedural debate prompted by the co-Prosecutors who disconcerted everyone with their documents, the latter failed to prove that Lak Minh did belong to S-21 staff. Something a civil party lawyer and the accused himself succeeded in doing! Yet, the co-Prosecutors had documents that could have easily brushed aside the doubts expressed by Duch on the previous day. As a final note, the afternoon of Tuesday August 4th was devoted to the tedious reading of minutes of witness interrogations, again submitted to the Chamber by the prosecution. It was hard to grasp the interest of these testimonies in light of their superfluous nature and, for one of them, its sometimes far-fetched character. Why did the Trial Chamber accept them?
The co-Prosecutors’ document mishap
The hearing opened with a confusion. The co-Prosecutors wanted to refer in court to a new document proving that witness Lak Minh worked as an interrogator at S-21. “We do not know which document you want to put before the Chamber,” president Nil Nonn, lost, told them. The Cambodian co-Prosecutor finally produced a reference number, which prompted an immediate reaction from judge Lavergne. He thought it was references to case file 2, in which case, he concluded, “it appears premature to present this document on the screens as of now.”
As his speaking time neared the end, the co-Prosecutor moved to the next question, which was related to an interview he gave in 2002 to the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-Cam) and which text he wanted to show the witness. He was very quickly interrupted, this time by Duch’s international co-lawyer. “Once again, the Chamber will note that we have absolutely no information on the professional skills of the person who made this very long interview. We know nothing of the conditions in which this document was established. The only thing we know is that it is absolutely not a legal document, while we do have two legal documents concerning the interrogation of this witness. This witness was heard a first time by the office of the co-Prosecutors […] and he was again heard by the investigators of the co-Investigating Judges. I recall that we are in a court, in a judicial process, and it seems to me more than appropriate to use legal documents rather than an NGO’s documents…” The international co-Prosecutor had already stood up to answer: “Thank you, dear colleague. Yes, we wish to proceed.” The latter was immediately rebuffed by the president: “You cannot take the floor before first asking the Chamber to speak.”
Co-Prosecutor Anees Ahmed argued that the DC-Cam document was “added to the case file” and therefore “once submitted to the Chamber’s attention, it is assumed to have been put before the Chamber. It belongs to Your Honours to determine the probative value of this document when you deliberate.” Judge Cartwright asked him for a list of documents he wanted to put before the Chamber “with all the pertaining reference numbers because, at this point, the situation is somewhat confused.” A few exchanges later, the Chamber accepted that this document be added to the file to serve as a basis for questions asked to the witness, since it concerned him directly. The Cambodian co-Prosecutor resumed the interrogation, referring to the transcript of the interview given to DC-Cam. “Mr. Lak Minh, do you remember the detainees you interrogated when you worked at S-21? […] Do you still remember this document [the interview]?” “No, I do not remember this document and the signature on it is not mine.” The witness did give DC-Cam the name of a prisoner he interrogated, according to the document, but he said he did not remember it. “I have forgotten a little.” However, he accepted to “maintain what he said back then.” In light of the lack of clarifications allowing an assessment of the authenticity of the document, the president asked him to move to the next questions, which the co-Prosecutor had already started doing. Finally, he changed his mind and gave the floor to his international colleague.
The witness’ memory fails...
“You told the co-Investigating Judges that Son Sen would come to S-21 once every month or two months. Is that correct?” “I do not remember things very clearly on this point. I don’t know anymore if he came on a very regular basis. It happened that twelve months had passed before I saw him again…”, the witness answered. In answer to another question, he said that Duch led “maybe every two weeks” political training sessions, which all the interrogators as well as Prey Sar cadres had to attend. “Do you know who interrogated female prisoners?”, the international co-Prosecutor asked him. The answer flew immediately, somewhat missing the spot: “I did not interrogate any!”
“You told the co-Investigating Judges that once you became good at interrogations, you started to receive, and I quote you, ‘good prisoners’,” Anees Ahmed reminded him. “As for expertise in interrogations, I was not an expert because I was new,” the witness defended himself. “Before the co-Investigating Judges, you also said that when they did not succeed in getting confessions from certain prisoners after two or three months, interrogators of a higher level would send them directly to you and you managed to obtain results very quickly. Is that correct?” “I am not sure of that. I only interrogated the prisoners who were sent to me.”
Recorded interrogation sessions
Floor to the civil parties. Ty Srinna, for group 1, reminded him his declarations to the co-Investigating Judges about the making of audio recordings of prisoners’ confessions, a month before Phnom Penh’s fall. Lak Minh maintained his statement and explained that the recording of interrogation sessions also aimed to supervise the interrogators themselves “because they were watched even more than detainees.” Their superiors would thus ensure that they “avoid asking the prisoners tendentious questions,” he added. Yes, when he arrived at S-21, he had to write his own biography. “And once a year, we had to update it.” From the time he joined the interrogation team, the witness claimed he saw Duch “every day.” “Back then, I did not dare to talk to him and I tried to avoid him. You could guess from his face that he was a very severe person.” “Back then, did you believe that [the detainees] really were party enemies?” “I do not think I believe it, but it was the order.”
A witness confirmed in his functions as S-21 interrogator
Silke Studzinsky, for group 2, presented on the screen a list of prisoners’ interrogations on which Lak Minh’s name featured next to a detainee who was interrogated. “I cannot remember whether I interrogated this person… I cannot recall the exact name of the prisoners I interrogated,” the witness eluded. The document provided evidence that he did belong to S-21 staff. The lawyer asked him to read the words written at the top of the document: “hot group.” On the previous day, Lak Minh had said he was not aware of such distinctions between interrogation groups...
A “boring” job at S-21
Now the defence. Lak Minh confirmed to Kar Savuth that his job as guard and interrogator at S-21 was “boring.” “We did not have the freedom to circulate and we had to be very careful because any mistake could be punished. We worked hard, lived in a state of fear and thought that one day, we would end up being killed like the other detainees. However, such was the mission we had been assigned by the higher echelon and therefore, we had to comply and follow the orders.” “There was no choice,” he explained, while he dared to turn his gaze to the defence beach naturally and regularly, unlike his former colleagues who testified previously and often refrained from doing so.
A witness obsessed by the difficult… working conditions at S-21
His international colleague, François Roux, continued: “Did you know that one did not leave S-21 alive?” “I cannot give you any answer regarding the prisoners’ fate because the party imposed secrecy. […] I did not know where they were taken…”, the witness lied awkwardly. Who could he have asked for information, Lak Minh wondered disingenuously, claiming he never discussed this topic with his colleagues. “We did not trust one another and each minded their own business.” Finally, pressured by the lawyer, he conceded he suspected that the detainnes “ended up being killed because the party policy was that any person deemed to be the ‘enemy’ had to be smashed.” The witness lingered on the difficulty of the work carried out by S-21 staff and the Damocles sword that hung over their heads. “Today, do you regret working at S-21?” The witness said so, as if he could not say otherwise. He was not convincing. “The work as guard was horrible and exhausting. We had to patrol for long hours and sometimes, I would bang against the walls. I did not enjoy the work I did at S-21. I regret working there. I regret losing friends and family.”
Duch contributes to shed light on the witness
The accused, already up, put his glasses on. “Yesterday, I told judge Lavergne that I would do some research once I was back in my cell and that I would try to find the list of prisoners who were interrogated. I can now present you the findings of my research.” In the documents he was given by the co-Investigating Judges, he found Lak Minh’s name “in three places” and gave the relevant reference numbers. The witness, he read, thus interrogated a female detainee, deputy director of Office 17, a farmer who came from a cooperative and the head of the propaganda office. Impassive, the accused concluded: “So, there was indeed an interrogator at S-21 whose name was Lak Minh.” He took his glasses off and added solemnly: “What is the truth then? I would like to refer to the Chamber to determine an opinion. I have complete faith in the Chamber’s determination to establish the truth regarding the present testimony.” Lak Minh’s hearing was over.
Laborious and pointless readings of minutes
No more witnesses were called to the stand. Instead, the clerks read the minutes of testimonies given by former S-21 staff members collected by the office of the co-Investigating Judges, because “the Chamber decided not to summon these witnesses to testify,” president Nil Nonn explained. The first was about a man named Khieu Chess, born in 1963 and assigned in 1976 to guard duty, before being sent to work to the rice field. He quickly evoked the purges. The second testimony was from Pes Mat, another teenager, born in 1960, who worked as guard at S-21 from 1976. The only one who seemed to follow these readings was Duch, who made observations regarding specific points in the stories heard.
Kambol (Phnom Penh, Cambodia). 04/08/2009: In the public gallery, many villagers attended the hearing at the ECCC on this day. Inconvenienced by the freezing air-conditioning, many were those who warmed up outside during the break… when they did not leave the gallery during the hearing©Stéphanie Gée
The third minutes read were those of the very media-savvy Nhem En, born in 1959 and former photographer of the Angkar. He referred to an internship carried out, under Khmer Rouge supervision, in China with other children. There, he specified, he “was the best at folding blankets,” a test to determine if young children were “rigorous.” He was trained in photography and was led to photograph the regime top leaders during meetings, delegations visiting Democratic Kampuchea or ongoing projects. He used to accompany “Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Son Sen, sometimes Khieu Samphan.” He worked at S-21 in early 1977, he said. “Duch was very strict and I was not allowed to make any mistakes […]. It was a question of life and death.” He said he was among six photographers who took photographs of most prisoners when they arrived at S-21. According to him, “Son Sen came to S-21 once a week.” At S-21, he photographed Vietnamese “who arrived in their uniforms.” He rejected the hypothesis of a staging behind the prisoners wearing military uniforms because, he argued, “Khmer Rouge did not like to pretend.” He was in direct contact with Duch when the latter called him “to come and take pictures of his family.” And as a coincidence, while he was passing by on his bicycle, he saw the accused “beat up a prisoner in front of Tuol Sleng.”
The escalation in witnesses did not bring anything to the debates and lost the trial’s momentum.
The defence contests the testimony of photographer Nhem En
Co-prosecutors and civil party lawyers had no observation to make regarding this testimony, but the defence did. “Please allow me […] to say that our judicial process deserves better than this kind of testimony. I still don’t understand how the co-Prosecutors could have put this witness on their list and I thank the Chamber for sparing us from having to listen for hours to this man, whom we now know has tried to auction, he said, Pol Pot’s sandals for 500,000 dollars. This man has deluded for years some journalists, even some researchers. I do not think he deserves any further comment.” In the name of the defence, François Roux clarified for the judges he did not object to the statement and accepted its inclusion in the case file, but that he contested it strongly on the substance.
Following him, Duch hammered his point: “About what [Nhem En] said concerning his activity as a photographer at S-21, there are a few gaps but on the whole, his testimony is accurate. However, what he said on his trip to China, that is completely fabricated. The truth is that in 1976, Pol Pot sent his nephew to study photography in China […] and Nhem En was not part of the trip. He was the son of a S-21 staff member and he was not authorised to take pictures outside of S-21. […] Nhem En is too proud when he says he studied in China and he was a good photographer and able to make movies. As for his claim he came to take pictures of my family, that is not true. I had my own camera, which I used to take photographs of my own family without Nhem En’s help.”
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