Study Sessions and Factory Tours Probed in Witness’s Testimony

On Wednesday, July 3, 2013, the Trial Chamber of the Extraordinary Chamber in the Courts of Cambodia continued to hear witness testimony. Today, Ek Hen presented to the court. Ms. Hen had been a factory worker and a member of a women’s combat unit during the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) period.

All parties were present at the proceedings, with the exception of the national Co-Lead Lawyer for the Civil Party Pich Ang who was absent due to “personal business.” Nuon Chea observed proceedings from his holding cell due to his health conditions.

Submissions on Witnesses from Nuon Chea Defense

Before the court heard from the witness, Co-Lawyer for Nuon Chea Victor Koppe made two brief points to the court.

Firstly, with regard to today’s witness, Mr. Koppe explained that the defense had received an email on the previous day from the prosecution to tell them that the prosecution intended to show documents to the witness. Some of these documents were photographs, which Mr. Koppe said was not a problem. However, the defense did have a problem with a 370-page document that had not been put on the interface used to share documents between parties, in accordance with the deadline of the midday on the day before the relevant proceedings. Mr. Koppe stressed that normally the defense would be flexible; however they had been kept to a strict deadline themselves. As such, if the court were to allow the document to be used, he wished to be allowed similar flexibility in the future.

The second point to be raised by the defense counsel concerned the next day’s witness, who had been requested specifically by the defense, though was already on the list of prosecution witnesses. Mr. Koppe sought clarification that the prosecution would first be examining the witness.

Senior Assistant Prosecutor Song Chorvoin claimed that the prosecution had found the photographs that she wished to present to the witness through the Documentation Center of Cambodia’s library (DC-CAM), and had only obtained the prints from the DC-CAM office on the previous day. The prosecution was of the view that the documents were of an important nature and so should be admitted.

Additionally, the document raised by the defense, while over 300 pages long, it was only being used to confirm the names of people the witness may know, she argued. The late submission, she claimed, was only due to the late calling of the witness to give evidence to the court.

Co-Lawyer for Khieu Samphan Arthur Vercken accused the prosecution of misleading the court in making these assertions and opposed the late submission of the documents. After a brief continuation of arguments, it was ultimately determined that the documents could be admitted, and that the lengthy document, which was a list of prisoners from Tuol Sleng (S21) detention center, had in fact already been seen by the court and had an evidence number.

In response to Mr. Koppe’s second point, Trial Chamber President Nil Nonn held that in principle the first party to request a witness would examine the witness first. As such, the prosecution should first examine the witness.

First Witness Introduced

The president then introduced today’s witness. She informed the court that she was Ek Hen, 56, from Kampong Chham. She currently works as a farmer. The witness was then reminded about her right not to self-incriminate.

Ms. Hen confirmed that she had undergone two interviews. The first, she said, was in 1993, when she had been shown a list with her brother’s name on it as a S21 prisoner. The second interview took place four years ago in 2008.

Asked by the president what she was told in the interviews, as he was unsure if the interviews the witness mentioned were in fact carried out by the ECCC, the witness clarified that only the second interview was with agents of the court.

Staff members from DC-CAM had also interviewed the witness. She told the court that she did not read and write Khmer very well. However, her older sister had read her the statements she had given before her appearance at the court. To her best recollection the statements were consistent with the interviews she had given.

The Prosecution Examines Ms. Hen

Ms. Chorvoin for the prosecution first established that the witness had two brothers. Her elder brother was originally know as Phorn Hoeun but took on the alias “Soeun” during the revolution. Ms. Hen’s second brother had been known as Phorn Hai. The witness testified that her father and both of her brothers had died in the war in the 1970s. Her father died in 1971, and one of her brothers had died on the battlefield of Prek Phnoav in 1974.

Ms. Hen testified that her brother Soeun had disappeared during the DK period. When the witness was repatriated from a refugee camp after the 1979 fall of the Khmer Rouge, staff from DC-Cam had come to see the witness with biographies of her brother from the S21 Prison.

Moving on for the moment, the witness was asked whether her brothers joined the revolution. She informed the court that both her brothers and father had joined the army in the North Zone. This zone was also known as Zone 3 or 4. At this zone her eldest brother was in the regiment, and her second brother was an ordinary combatants.[2]

During the Khmer Rouge period itself, Ms. Hen’s family had been separated from one another. She herself had initially been able to remain at their home; however, she was eventually drafted to held build a dam in Kang Chirit District. After a period of dam construction, she had been engaged in rice farming for three months before then being moved to Phnom Penh.

Ms., Chorvoin continued to probe deeper into the details of the witness’s work at the dam. Testimony was given that women as young as 16 years old were gathered to build dams. Two people would be collected from each village to participate. They would travel to the work site by foot, carrying their buckets, as there was no other form of transportation available. Women leaders and “young men leaders” then assigned the workforce with tasks.

When the witness had arrived at the dam construction site in early 1976 or late 1975, she had found thousands of other people already working there. During her period working there, she told the court that planes flying overhead had caused the workers to have to take cover. Ms. Hen told the court that she had only been allowed to return home every 10 days. Otherwise, she had to sleep at the building site, where she was bitten by mosquitos. The witness’s role was to shovel dirt, which she had found to be difficult as a 16-year-old girl.

After leaving the dam site the witness had become a female combatant. Her basic training had lasted for six months, during which time she had been led by the head of her platoon. The head of the Eastern Zone of which the witness had been a part was called So Phim. However, it had been one of So Phim’s subordinates who had conducted the training sessions.

So Vanna alias So Phim (center, in black) and Khmer Rouge troops visiting a unit of volunteer Vietnamese communist fighters, 1973. The photo was taken shortly before the allied guerillas launched an attack on the Krabao military base in Kampong Cham province as part of the civil war against the Khmer Republic government led by Marshal Lon Nol. So Phim later became the Secretary of the CPK for the DK Eastern Zone. He committed suicide on June 3, 1978. (Source: Documentation Center of Cambodia Archives/VNA)

Turning briefly to a side topic, Ms. Chorvoin asked the witness what she had been taught about the Vietnamese during her training. The witness told the court that during her training she had not been told anything about the relationship between Cambodia and Vietnam or the nature of enemies or traitors more generally,

Following her training, the witness had been moved to Phnom Penh, approximately four months after the revolution in April 1975. After a week in Phnom Penh she was sent to Kampong Som. There she was demobilized from the female combat unit and was instead moved into the “mobile unit.” As a part of this unit she had been assigned with cleaning damaged buildings. One building the witnessed cleaned was a reception hall that was of particular interest to the prosecution. However, when asked about the building, the witness was unable to provide the court with any details on it.

Following her work as a cleaner, the witness had then worked in a salt-field where she had carried sacks of salt onto vehicles. In total the witness worked for three months on various salt-fields. The work was difficult, she told the court, as the workers were treated like “dock workers carrying heavy goods.”

In 1976 Ms. Hen moved to Phnom Penh where she was assigned to work at the Central Textile Factory, also known as K9 unit, part of the 870 unit located near the Orusei Market. This was where the witness both lived and worked between late 1976 and January 7, 1979, when the Khmer Rouge fell from power.

Ms. Hen testified that she had learned that the K9 office was a branch of the 870 unit from the head of that unit. While working there the witness had been woken daily at 4 a.m. to do “socialist” work, such as watering vegetables. After this the workers would engage in their “core work,” which was the production of clothes. During this period the witness had had to work from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m., with the exception of a two-hour lunch break and an additional evening break for dinner.

In her interview with the Office of the Co-Investigating Judges (OCIJ), the witness had been asked whether people in her workplace had disappeared. “I saw people arrested and put in trucks by armed soldiers. First they arrested the leaders, then deputies, then others who had been involved with the North or East Zones who they accused of treason,” she had said.

At this stage Mr. Vercken objected to the manner that the prosecution had been asking their question. Paradoxically Mr. Vercken claimed firstly that the questions being asked were suggestive and secondly that they were too open.

President Nonn held that the objection was not appropriate; however the chamber reminded the prosecution that the questions must be relevant to the case at hand.

Ms. Chorvoin continued her examination by asking Ms. Hen if she had observed the arrest of a person called Keo. The witness told the court that she had seen him arrested and escorted into a vehicle. One person was arrested at a time, so he was arrested on his own. Ms. Henalso confirmed that she knew a person called Kun who was also arrested, though she did not know what happened to him after his arrest.

Ms. Chorvointhen showed the witness a photograph, presumably of one of the arrested persons. Ms. Hen did not know who the person displayed was. A second photograph was shown to the witness, who believed it to be her elder brother.

The photograph and confession shown to Ms. Hen in court, believed to be of her older brother Phorn Hoeun.
(Source: Documentation Center of Cambodia Archives)

The prosecution had given photocopies of this photograph to each of the parties before the court and the judges. Yet, at this stage it was noticed by Mr. Koppe that the witness had a different version of the photo, surrounded by text. Ms. Chorvoin told the court that it had been shown a version without the text in order to highlight the photograph. She was initially given permission to proceed by President Nonn; however Mr. Koppe interjected again and adamantly argued that it must be established whether the text on the page identified the subject of the photograph.

On behalf of the chamber Judge Cartwright questioned the prosecutor and determined that the text had indeed identified the subject of the photograph. As such Mr. Koppe’s objection was sustained, and the photograph was declared to have no probative value.

After a short morning break Ms. Hen’s examination by the prosecution continued. The witness told the court that to her knowledge four factory workers had disappeared while she had worked there. This had made the workers afraid; nonetheless they had had to get on with their work.

The floor was then handed over to Senior Assistant Prosecutor Keith Raynor. He began by turning to the witness’s DC-Cam interview and her interview with the OCIJ, both of which he showed to the witness in order to confirm the dates they were conducted. It was confirmed that the DC-CAM interview had been held on August 6, 2003 with Long Dany, and the OCIJ interview was held on March 5, 2008. The witness confirmed that she had seen both documents and they had been read to her.

Mr. Raynor read Ms. Hen an extract from one of these interviews in which she was asked if she ever knew Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea or Ieng Sary. She had replied that she had known Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan because they came to lead a study session at Borei Keila, which the witness had attended.

Ms. Hen had told her interviewer that she had attended two such study sessions. The first had been led by Khieu Samphan and had covered subjects such as striving to work, conservation and food. Khieu Samphan had announced that a person called Pang had been arrested and taken away because he was a traitor collaborating with the “Yuon.”[3] It was here that the witness had learned that Pang was the head of Unit 870. She had also recounted that Khieu Samphan had come to look at her workplace in 1976. At that time he came when the workers were eating and had used the witness’s spoon to test the soup she was eating.

Mr. Raynor proceeded to ask a number of questions about the study meeting led by Khieu Samphan. It was established that the meeting had been attended by about 400 to 500 participants, including a number of people from the garment manufacturing factory and a transportation unit. Such workers had been assigned to attend on a rotation, with five being dispatched at a time. Other groups had preceded the witness’s group. The meeting, which the witness had attended with Khieu Samphan, had lasted for one day, starting at 7 a.m. and ended at 10 p.m.

The witness told the court that the day had started with Khieu Samphan instructing the workers to strive hard to assist the country. “The Struggle” was discussed at the meeting, which the witness said had meant the need to provide three tons of rice per hectare of land. Mr. Raynor confirmed with her that no documents had been presented to the session.

Ms. Hen was unable to recall for how long Khieu Samphan spoke, but she was able to recall that after a lunch break Khieu Samphan had left and the group had split into small groups to discuss the session and conduct self-criticism. These small groups were assigned a leader. The witness could not recall any talk about “enemies” during the study session.

On the subject of Pang, Khieu Samphan had not specified when the arrest had occurred, she said, but had said that Pang had been arrested, as he was a traitor. Participants were told that they should not follow what he had said. “Like a bundle of chopsticks the people cannot be broken,” Khieu Samphan had told the session, according to Ms. Hen.

Mr. Raynor enquired as to what the witness had learned about Yuon, or Vietnamese, at the study session. Ms. Hen testified that Yuon were not regarded as friends; Khieu Samphan had mentioned that Khmer had to be united and free of the Vietnamese. The witness informed the court that she had not heard talk of traitors at that study session.

Moving to Pang’s visits to the witness’s factory, the court was told that Pang had visited the factory on two occasions by car. A group of 100 people would accompany him.[4]

On the topic of Nuon Chea, Ms. Hen had told her OCIJ interviewer that she had attended a study session at Borei Keila presided over by Nuon Chea. This session had covered treason, the need to keep working, and the plans to purge the enemy, she had said. It had lasted for just one morning.

Mr. Raynor asked the witness what was said about treason during the session. Ms. Hen replied to say that treason was not mentioned; however the prosecutor then quickly recounted three instances at which the witness had mentioned treason in her OCIJ interview. Mr. Raynor questioned if these references were correct, which the witness confirmed they were.

With regards to the “North Zone Treason,” Ms. Hen continued, Nuon Chea had told the study session that there were traitors present in that area, without mentioning individual names. Nuon Chea had also mentioned Koy Cuon by name as a traitor but did not elaborate further on who he was. At this stage Mr. Koppe requested the prosecutor determine whether reference was being made to Koy Cuon or Koy Thuon, as the defense counsel had heard both names in the testimony. Obliging, Mr. Raynor established that the person was known to the witness as Koy Cuon.

According to Ms. Hen’s testimony, Nuon Chea had told the workers at the study session that they had to stop associating with enemy networks “before it was too late.” He had also told the meeting that it must defend the territory so the enemy would not invade, she said; the Khmer should be shoulder to shoulder to protect their land. On examination the witness claimed the subject of purges had not been addressed at this session.

In subsequent “live review sessions” which followed, the witness continued, people were encouraged to talk about their disadvantages and bad points; people had to admit the bad things that they had done and areas they felt they could improve on. After the meeting, the witness asserted, she had not seen anything happen to those who had made mistakes at the garment factory, though.

The Civil Parties Examine Ms. Hen

Sin Soworn, Civil Party Co-Lawyer, asked the Ms. Hen about her work at the mobile unit building a dam in the East Zone. The witness explained that she had joined the women’s combat unit because she had found the work building dams so difficult. “It would be better to die in the combat unit than to continue building a dam,” she had claimed.

The witness recounted that a person called Ain was responsible for recruitment for the women’s mobile combat unit, which she worked in for a total of six months.

The witness was asked why she was moved to Phnom Penh; however before she could answer the President interjected on the grounds that the testimony was straying outside the case of 002/01.

Moving on to discuss arrests, Ms. Soworn inquired as to whom the witness had seen taken away by the Khmer Rouge. Ms. Hen recounted that as well as Pang, she had seen one other person being arrested, whose name she could not recall. These arrests had occurred at 9 a.m. in the morning. Part of the witness’s interview was cited to the court, in which she had said that disappearances had involved people being loaded into a truck, having been accused of membership in the “East String Network.”

Moving on to the study session led by Nuon Chea, Ms. Soworn asked Ms. Hen about the subjects covered. Specifically she asked about what “striving to work to keep up with the plan” could have meant. At this stage Son Arun, Co-Lawyer for Nuon Chea ,successfully objected that this was a speculative question, and so the counsel for the civil party was forced to move on.

The final question asked of the witness was whether she had been able to visit her home between 1974 and 1979. In an apparent contradiction with her earlier testimony, Ms. Hen stated that she had not. As counsel asked what would have happened if she had returned, the president made an impassioned intervention, questioning “the point of putting a question like this.”

Taking over from her colleague, Christine Martineau asked the witness for a brief summary of her training, enquiring as to the role Pang had played in it. The witness testified that she had not attended any training with Pang.

Next, the witness was asked about Khieu Samphan’s inspections of the factory she had worked at. Specifically, the civil party lawyer wished to know if he had checked the working conditions of the factory workers, or how they were working. Not answering directly, the witness stated that Khieu Samphan had visited the workers but did not spend much time with them. They could see him waving and talking, the witness told the court. After his visit food was “sufficient,” she said. “We had plenty of rice and the soup was delicious. We managed to raise some pigs and poultry. We grew vegetables in our back yard,“ Ms. Hen informed the court.

Cutting short the Civil Parties’ examination, which had now gone into the scheduled lunch break, President Nonn declared an end to the morning’s session.

Nuon Chea’s Defense Examine Ms. Hen

After the lunch break, Mr. Koppe started the cross-examination by discussing the death of the witness’s father, which had been described in her interview as being the result of “Lon Nol bombing.” The witness explained that the “crime” that was committed against her father took place at Svay Teab. She had not witnessed the event herself, but her uncle had told her that a bomb had hit her father. On examination she explained that during that period only the Lon Nol side possessed planes and would drop bombs. The bomb in question had caused other casualties; however the witness did not know how many.

Mr. Koppe then asked whether the death of her father had led to her brothers joining the revolution. The witness explained that her eldest brother had already joined the army at the time of her father’s death; however her second brother did join up soon afterward.

Once a member of the army, her brother had visited their home four times. Ms. Hen recounted that she could remember stories of the battles her brother had been involved in. She was able to recall that he talked precisely about Pren Chu but could not remember hearing any stories about the capture of Lon Nol forces by the revolutionary forces or about their execution.

The witness was assigned to the East Zone because that was where she was based when she signed up to join the combat unit. Her eldest brother had been in the North Zone on business at the time of the coup, which caused him to join the revolution. For that reason he joined that zone’s military.

Mr. Koppe next confirmed with the witness that she had joined the female combat group as an ordinary soldier – a member of the “third squad” of company thirteen. There were very few other female combatant groups, the court learned from Ms. Hen. The defense counsel attempted to ascertain how the platoon the witness was a member of fitted into the larger organization. The witness was not forthcoming with the answer to this line of questioning.

The witness testified that at the conclusion of her training, the war had ended, and so she was demobilized to become a member of a female unit. She had not been a part of the liberation of Phnom Penh, though she did help to clean after it.

During the weeks and months after April 1975, the witness testified, she had been in District 17, where she had lived for a few months before moving to Phnom Penh.

Probing deeper into the kind of training the witness had received, Mr. Koppe was unable to ascertain with Ms. Hen whether during her training she had been taught how to treat captured soldiers. The witness did testify that in the months following the liberation, she did not see the capture or treatment of Lon Nol soldiers. She did not hear any stories or information about their capture either.

Moving on, Mr. Koppe asked about the role of So Phim, who had recruited the witness. Ms. Hen testified that he had been the leader of the Eastern Zone, but she did meet with him regularly. Mr. Koppe highlighted that this meant the unit was part of a bigger organization. The witness confirmed that So Phim did not literally lead the forces but was rather in charge of a larger organization – in essence he did not supervise the unit on a daily basis.

The witness did not know who the deputy leader of the Eastern Zone was. A number of names were then cited to the witness, none of whom she knew. Finally, Mr. Koppe showed her the name of another witness on a piece of paper to find out if Ms. Hen knew him or her, without disclosing the name in open court. Ms. Hen testified that she had learned the person’s name recently through watching television.

Counsel for Khieu Samphan Examines Ms. Hen

Following on from Mr. Koppe’s questioning, Mr. Vercken started by asking the witness about the training sessions she had attended with Khieu Samphan. Mr. Vercken asked the witness to confirm the first training session had taken place in Borei Keila and was presided over by Khieu Samphan in 1976. The witness confirmed this session took place in late 1976.

In the morning session, the witness had stated, “Khieu Samphan did not want us to argue because the war had just ended,” Mr. Vercken recounted, enquiring as to which war the witness had been referring. In response Ms. Hen explained that a succession of conflicts had just ended in Cambodia. She clarified to Mr. Vercken that she had testified this was the first time Khieu Samphan headed a session attended by the witness and the first time she had heard about traitors.

“Therefore,” asked Mr. Vercken, “is it accurate to say, that of the two study sessions you attended, Mr. Khieu Samphan chaired the first session, and Mr. Nuon Chea chaired the second? Is this correct?” In contravention of her prior testimony, the witness denied this to be the case, claiming that it was the first session that was chaired by Nuon Chea and the second by Khieu Samphan. Further, the witness claimed, “When Khieu Samphan was lecturing, he didn’t mention anything about traitors. Only at a later date did he mention this.”

When the defense counsel highlighted the major inconsistencies in the witness’s testimony, she told the court, “Perhaps my response was not correct as to the order” and emphasized that the events had occurred a long time ago.

Despite this apparent admission of doubt, the witness went on to declare resolutely that the turn of events was sound in her mind. In response to this, and with the court’s permission, Mr. Vercken played an audio clip of the witness’s interview with the OCIJ investigator. The clip was played twice as the interpreters struggled to interpret its entirety the first time. In that clip, the witness told the investigator that she had met Khieu Samphan in 1976 when he had held the training session. As such, Mr. Vercken put it to the witness again that she must be mistaken, as the audio, the interview statement, and her morning’s testimony all suggested this was when she met him. The witness again claimed that the events had transpired a long time ago but that it was at the second session at which treason had been discussed.

Following the final recess of the day, Mr. Vercken read the witness another part of her interview of March 2008, in which she had claimed that the first study session was chaired by Khieu Samphan. Further on in that transcript it was recorded that the witness had said that Nuon Chea led a second session in 1978 and talked about the North Zone Group treason. Ms. Hen claimed that the question of whether this was consistent with her testimony confused her and reiterated that Nuon Chea was chair of the first session and Khieu Samphan the second.

Eventually Mr. Vercken was told by the president to move on, though not before he made another attempt to get the witness to admit she might be mistaken.

Moving on, Mr. Vercken asked the witness to confirm her earlier testimony that she had not attended sessions led by Pang. This he then also undermined, by quoting the interview the witness had given to DC-Cam, in which she had recalled being taught about the communist struggle by Mr. Pang. Asked how she could have forgotten this, the witness told the court that the event had happened a long time ago and so she may have forgotten.

Similarly, a difference was highlighted between Ms. Hen’s earlier testimony that the study sessions had lasted half a day and one day respectively and her OCIJ interview in which she had claimed they were a week long. This difference the witness tried to explain by virtue of there being a week of self-criticism, which reportedly followed the formal sessions.

Finally, the defense counsel scrutinized whether the witness could accurately recall how many times Khieu Samphan had visited her factory. Ultimately the witness accepted that she could be mistaken and that she could have had a better recollection four years ago when she had been interviewed.

The President Introduces a Second Witness

With only half an hour of scheduled proceedings to go, President Nonn surprised onlookers by introducing the reserve witness to the chamber at the conclusion of Ms. Hen’s testimony. Sum Alatt, 60, introduced himself as a resident of Pursat province who had previously worked at the Provincial Council for Culture and Fine Arts.

Mr. Alatt told the court that he had been interviewed by the OCIJ in 2008 in the office of the Department of Culture and Fine Art in Pursat province. Before the day’s proceedings, the witness had read the record of that interview, which he said was consistent with the responses he had given.

The Prosecution Begins Examination of Mr. Alatt

William Smith, Deputy Co-Prosecutor, began his examination of the witness by setting out how he would be structuring his questions. He told the court that firstly he would be asking preliminary questions about Mr. Alatt’s personal and family background and the role the witness had played in the conflict between Democratic Kampuchea and Lon Nol. On the following day, he would continue to discuss events such as those that allegedly occurred at Tuol Po Chrey.

The witness was asked how many of his children were born during the DK period. He replied that his eldest was not born during that time but was delivered shortly afterward. The witness’s father had died when the witness was nine years old, and his mother passed away after the Khmer Rouge regime.

The witness explained to the court that he had retired from his role as Deputy Director of the Office for Culture and Fine Art one year ago, having held the position since 1986. Before 1979 he had worked in the Ministry of Education and transferred to the Office of Culture and Fine Arts in 1986. There he had been in charge of performance arts. The main role of the department was to preserve national culture, the court was told.

In the witness’s statement to the court’s investigators, the witness had said that in 1980 he had held the role of collecting evidence of crimes committed in the DK period. Five people from each province had been invited to a meeting in Phnom Penh to present evidence of the events in their areas, and the witness had been one of Pursat’s representatives. At the meeting he had presented on the number of people killed in Pursat, as well as the nature of the killing sites. The information, which was presented by each province, was then amalgamated and published in a book by the Department of Education.

In preparation for the meeting, Mr. Alatt continued, the representatives of Pursat had spent a day discussing their evidence, as each was from a different district. The five districts represented were Pursat, Kandeang, Bakan, Krakor and Kravanh. Information presented by the representatives had come from the experience of the five of them, combined with eyewitness testimony, Mr. Alatt told the court.

He himself had lived in Pursat Province for all of his life and so confirmed to Mr. Smith that he was familiar with its towns and villages and significant landmarks. The witness testified that he had been selected to represent his district as an educated person – having studied in the former Soviet Union.

Mr. Smith ended his examination at this point agreeing to reconvene on the following day.

The court adjourned with its next hearing scheduled to begin at 9 am on Thursday, July 4, 2013. Mr. Vercken was asked to confirm whether the Khieu Samphan defense team would need time in the following week to respond to the key documents presented to the court. He replied that he would consult with his team and inform the court soon.