Former S-21 Interrogator Spent Years Eliciting Prisoner Confessions but Appears Unwilling to Confess to Anything Himself

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

Preliminary Issues: Joint Criminal Enterprise, Self-Incrimination, and Seating Assignments

Yesterday, the Trial Chamber adjourned the proceedings early after discovering that testifying witness Mam Nai, a former interrogator at Tuol Sleng prison (S-21), was not represented by legal counsel and desired counsel but could not afford it. This disturbing discovery came about when international defense counsel Francois Roux raised his concern that the witness was at great risk of self-incrimination given the prosecution’s recent submission to the Chamber that Joint Criminal Enterprise (JCE) be applied as a mode of liability in the trial of Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch).

JCE is a controversial form of criminal liability that extends equal legal responsibility to all actors in a common criminal plan. The prosecution previously represented it would not prosecute Mam at the ECCC, but this does not guarantee against prosecution in national courts, which co-prosecutor William Smith called an “extremely remote possibility.” The Chamber announced recently it will rule on the application of JCE at the same time it rules on the merits of Duch’s case; thus, it is still an open issue…

Read more: ctm_blog_7-14-2009

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.