Duch Focused on the Ends, Not the Means

by Laura MacDonald, Member of the New York Bar and Consultant to the Center for International Human Rights, Northwestern University School of Law
— 16 Jun, 2009

Interrogation and Torture at S-21

It was another somber day in the courtroom as the Trial Chamber continued questioning Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch) about operations at the Khmer Rouge’s notorious Tuol Sleng prison (S-21) with a focus on the interrogation and torture methods used on prisoners there.

After preliminary interrogation, Comrade Hor, Duch’s deputy, would assign each prisoner to one of four groups of interrogators, which were organized according to the torture techniques they employed. The “cold” group theoretically did not use torture, but rather tried to understand prisoners’ psyches in order to coerce them into confessing their offenses against the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK). Torture tools were on display in the interrogation room for added effect. The “hot” group had “hot hands” and most commonly beat prisoners on a short-term basis. The “chewing” group was intended for prisoners deemed in need of long-term interrogation sometimes lasting weeks or months. Finally, there was a special group for interrogating high-ranking CPK members whose confessions were critical to the CPK because they were likely to implicate many others within the party ranks.

During his time as Deputy Chairman and later as Chairman of S-21, Duch was solely responsible for training cadre in interrogation techniques. While Duch did not teach torture techniques per se, he discussed the importance of torture and authorized the use of four main types of torture: “beating up” with clubs, lashes, or hands; suffocation with plastic bags; pouring water into prisoners’ nostrils; and electrocution. Duch insists he instructed interrogators to seek confessions using verbal threats first and to resort to torture only if necessary. He admits, however, that only one interrogator used this controlled method while the others used torture from the outset. During one-on-one interrogation sessions, the limits on interrogators designed for efficient confession extraction were two-fold: do not kill the prisoners or render them too weak to confess. Prisoners who killed prisoners during torture were reported to Duch’s superior, but generally went unpunished…

Read more: ctm_blog_6-16-2009

Cambodia Tribunal Monitor’s Trial Observer posts are written according to the personal observations and opinions of the writer and do not constitute a transcript of ECCC proceedings or the views of Cambodia Tribunal Monitor and/or its partners. Official court transcripts for the ECCC’s hearings may be accessed at the ECCC website.