Details About Duch’s Role at S-21 Explored, While Details About Civil Parties’ Role in Trial Avoided

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

Operations at Duch’s “Execution Chamber”

Following intense questioning last week from all five Trial Chamber judges on the operations of Tuol Sleng prison (S-21) and the killing fields at Choeung Ek, Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch) was on the dock this morning to answer lingering questions from the prosecution and civil parties on the same topic.

The Cambodian Co-Prosecutor announced his questions were intended to show Duch’s participation in the arrest, interrogation, torture, and killing of S-21 prisoners. In contrast to the detailed but general questions from the judges last week, the prosecution presented Duch with a series of specific documents, mainly prisoner confessions Duch had annotated by hand, and some very interesting testimony emerged. While Duch received orders from the upper echelon of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) regarding how to interrogate and torture high-ranking or important prisoners, he admits he had the responsibility and authority for ordering torture of ordinary prisoners. Annotations show Duch gave specific interrogation instructions regarding what questions should be asked and what level of torture should be used. For example, Duch instructed an interrogator to beat a female prisoner until she admitted that she traveled to Vietnam not for medical treatment but for treacherous activities.

The prosecution also presented a hand-written letter from Duch to an interrogator giving the interrogator authority to torture a certain high-ranking prisoner to death. Duch explained that this letter was “a trickery” later shown to the prisoner to entice him to cooperate and confess. Duch has maintained that he prohibited interrogators from torturing prisoners to death, although he admits those who violated this rule went unpunished…

Read more: ctm_blog_6-22-2009

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.