Cadres’ Denials Fail to Convince
Srei Than and Phann Chhen, two cadres accused of involvement in heinous crimes by former prisoner Say Sen, have protested before the ECCC that they are innocent. Each claimed that critical statements tantamount to admissions of guilt that they had made to OCIJ investigators were recorded inaccurately. Each of them basically portrayed their behavior during the Khmer Rouge regime as being beyond reproach. Overall, they were ignorant of the horrors being committed literally within screaming distance of themselves. They saw no evil, heard no evil and could speak of no evil.
Anta Guissé, Khieu Samphan Defence Counsel, picked up the cross-examination of Srei Than with more questions about the chain of command for his unit. He reiterated that his commanders, Ta and Mean, never visited Krain Ta Chan. The unit received instructions prior to their posting and were expected “to have mastery of themselves” while carrying out their duties.
What orders they received came via army messengers. In 1978, the military command transferred some members of his unit, including himself, to another unit performing soldiers’ duties. Mr. Srei thought Ta An or Duch did not have army experience, that they “never worked as soldiers.” Neither did the witness know if Ta An or Duch were in contact with his superiors. Mr. Srei had been instructed in the 12 moral principles (or “revolutionary commands”) as part of his military training, but could not recall the details. In particular, he could not recall “a principle on misconduct vis-à-vis women.”
Mr. Srei was able to identify Sieng, Sim, Suon, Duch and Ouk as part of his unit although he did not know their family names or if there were any kinship ties between Suon and Sieng. He confirmed Ms. Guissé’s understanding that there were two separate groups of guards at Kraing Ta Chan: the army soldiers in his unit and then the staff assigned and ordered by Ta An and Duch. Srei Than could not remember the names of the staff at the prison. Counsel read in names of staff that had been attested to by Meas Sokar: Mr. Srei had heard the names “Mem” and “Pheng,” but said he had not known them. He did not recall “Chen,” “Sung” or “Suon.” He remembered Seang and that Seang, Ta An and Duch were the only ones allowed to interrogate prisoners. The witness saw the three men together often in the prison office so concluded that they “were close.” He implied that his failure to recognize most of the staff was because his unit members were not allowed to move around and had to stay at their post. Unless they were given specific duties to do inside the security center, they were not allowed to enter the compound. Mr. Srei thought he was the only one allowed into the prison from his unit unless the others “accidentally walked into the center.” The witness did not know what would cause them to go inside. They all “minded (their) own business” and did not pay attention to any directions given to others so he would not have known if others in his unit had specific tasks to do in the center. The guards ate (either meals brought to them from the center or that they cooked) and slept in hammocks at their post.
In early 1978, after about a year, Ta and Mean, Mr. Srei’s military commanders, made the decision to move the post from 1 kilometer away to the prison gate. The order had been received by messenger. The only other order he received while at Kraing Ta Chan was to leave the center, (in June or July of 1978), and go to headquarters to await his next assignment which was back to his regiment.
Most people would go in and out of the prison through the west gate. The east gate which he guarded rarely had any traffic. Srei Than was not aware of any “special status” detainees who were allowed to leave the compound. When prodded about the children who tended the cows and buffalo, he disclosed that he had not thought of them “because they were too young.” When prisoners were brought in, the west gate was used regularly, the east gate “once in awhile.”
Mr. Srei maintained that nobody could leave the compound without going through one of the two gates. Visitors such as messengers were stopped at the fence and not allowed inside.
The guards at the gates would take any messages to the chief. The witness did not know a messenger by the name of Soung but explained that everyone in the army was a “combatant” and could be called on for a specific duty on command. Only Ta An and Duch would ask him to perform a specific task but he acted under their “instructions” not “orders.”
Mr. Srei admitted that he “was not skilful” on the typewriter but that “it was doable” for him.
He had little competition for the task as the majority of people at the center were illiterate with “only a minimum number knowing how to read and write.” Dam was no longer there when Srei Than arrived at Kraing Da Chan. Dam was a former chief of the prison but later was made a detainee for unknown reasons. The witness could not remember the names of the communes that would send prisoners as they “were from across the country.” He pinpointed that Cheng Tong commune was in Tram Kok, Takeo province, but he could not recall any prisoners coming from there.
Srei Than did not have any issues with Say Sen or understand why Say Sen would make the allegations to which he had testified. Mr. Srei was clear that he felt Say Sen “was within his rights to mention whatever he wants so (he) could not make an assessment on it. But (he) had taken an oath before the iron statute so had said only the truth. It’s all true.”
Khieu Samphan Defence Counsel Kong Sam Onn took the floor after the morning break to ask the witness what factors had led him to become a soldier. Mr. Srei was 13 or 14 during the coup d’état of March 18, 1970. He saw what happened during the protests against the Lon Nol Khmer Republic regime. It left him so “shocked and terrified” that, in 1972 or 1973, he became a militiaman. In 1974, he was posted to a unit and, in 1975, to a regional unit. In 1977, he became a soldier in Regiment 13. Srei Than “became a soldier because of seeing innocent people killed.” He had seen the bodies and body parts of some 200 demonstrators slaughtered at a market.
Mr. Kong reviewed with the witness that his original post was close to a subsidiary road near some villages to the west of Kraing Ta Chan. The six members of Mr. Srei’s unit built “a hall” in which they lived. During the daytime, they would scout for food. They had mango, coconut and banana trees. There was a deserted village between their post and the security center. The unit’s main duty was to wait and receive people who had been arrested in villages and communes. The guards would then walk the prisoners to the center but the guards did not enter the compound. The number of escorts varied according to the number of prisoners. One prisoner would require one guard. If more prisoners, at least two guards. Once the unit moved to the gate, the only “main buildings” Srei Than remembered were the prisoner detention buildings. The guard’s lived in a thatched-roof, open structure and slept in hammocks. He does not know if there were any previous buildings in the compound. At the gate, the unit’s “main duty was of a military nature: guard duty.”
Srei Than thought he was assigned the supplementary duty of typing because he had told the administrators that he could read and write and had “limited typing skill.” Mr. Srei determined that he was probably at the gate posting about six months.
The Defence Counsel asked for a definition of “a self-mastery stance.” Mr. Srei explained that “in the army, every soldier had to be self-responsible: to do his assigned duties and to stay where posted.” He could not tell the others in his unit about his task. It was his personal assignment. Likewise, he could not ask them about the nature of their assignments. If this principle was broken, as a soldier he would have been punished: “Angkar has eyes everywhere.”
The witness patiently delineated for Mr. Kong that there is a distinction between an instruction from a superior and being asked by a non-superior to perform a specific task “like on a loan.”
Instructions to move the post had come from the military commanders. There were no instructions from the military regarding Mr. Srei contacting prison staff.
Mr. Srei knew Ta An’s signature because he saw it (and Duch’s) on various documents. He could not remember what it looked like now but would be able to recognize it because Ta An always put “An” next to it. When Mr. Kong showed him four documents, Mr. Srei “(could) not say if the signatures are identical but they are similar.” The witness pointed out that the signer had put “An” next to the signature. When Mr. Srei did not recognize the signature in a red circle on another document as being An’s, Mr. Kong requested that “the Chamber do a forensic analysis of the document to confirm the signature.”
As this brought the testimony of Srei Than to an end, the President thanked him and his duty counsel for their service to the court and to justice, and dismissed them.
Marie Guiraud, Civil Party Lead Co-Lawyer notified the court that she has not received the Nuon Chea Team’s list of documents on which they intended to examine the next witness. She reminded the Chamber, in regard to the court’s forthcoming instructions on the matter of the interface, that it is important that the civil parties have access to documents defence wants to use for their own purposes in preparing a witness.
Victor Koppe clarified that his team did not post 700 documents, that the number was closer to 200, the balance being copies in three languages and double uploads of some documents due to flaws in the system. He averred that “all counsel should know the documents uploaded by heart.” He said that he did not yet know which of the documents he will need for the new witness. He “deeply resent(ed) the implication (they) were acting in bad faith.”
Judge Fenz angrily demanded that if that was so, “Why was the order violated to identify the relevant parts of the production. Why didn’t (he) comply?”
Mr. Koppe returned that he might use any of the documents on the interface and he does not have the staff or capacity to list two hundred documents.
The President wanted to know whether he actually will be using all 200 disclosures.
The Defence Counsel drew from a different perspective to note that he “will not be doing examination-in-chief. The answers a witness provides may give rise to using (whatever) record from the 200.” Mr. Koppe advanced that “that is the liberty (they) should have.”
Ms. Guiraud had taken offence. She reacted that she did “not want him to infer that (they) don’t know the documents. The problem is how we are going to use the interface.” She wanted prior notification with all relevant documents “in segments” or they must be loaded 48 hours ahead of use. She argued that knowing what documents the other counsel would be using is part of her strategy in preparing a witness and asked the court “to clarify the situation.”
Mr. Lysak was blunt. The Co-Prosecutor charged that the Nuon Chea Team had used only 15 documents for the last witness out of the 200 they had posted. He called the overload “a subterfuge to hide the documents they are going to use. If counsel thinks this is good faith, he doesn’t know what that means.”
The President updated the parties that the Chamber had drafted a decision and will deliberate on it over the weekend.
The lunch break was welcomed.
In the first item of business for the afternoon, Judge Lavergne translated a mangled translation of President Nil Nonn’s announcement that the trial sitting days of all day February 26 and March 2, 2015, and the morning of March 3, 2015, are cancelled in order to give counsel time to read the new disclosures. There will be a full day of hearings on February 25, 2015, in deference to the next witness’s age and health which impose a burden on him if he has to travel home for the weekend and then return back to the court to finish his testimony.
Secondly, the court asked Kong Sam Onn to make a formal request for a forensic examination of the document he was questioning inclusive of grounds for it.
And it was on to the next witness, Phann Chhen, a 83-year-old Khmer Rouge cadre. The President wasted no time in completing the formalities and turning the floor over to Srea Rattanak, National Co-Prosecutor.
Mr. Phann was born, and used to reside, in Takeo province. He moved to Phnom Penh in the 1950’s and, in 1959, to the Chup rubber plantation. During 1970-1973, he had lived in Takeo province where he was a village chief and then, in mid-1972, chief of Kus Commune. He described his duties as working for the refugee committee in Tram Kok. He was in charge of social and cultural activities, including teaching. For example, Mr. Phann taught skill training and rice farming. He also worked on the “upper echelon’s plan” to organize 10 villages into the Kus commune. In 1973, the District Office took control of the villages. Kraing Ta Chan was taken away from the old management to use as a security center. Phann Chhen defined a security center as “a place to re-educate anyone who had committed mistakes.”
Mr. Phann named Pi, An, Pheng, Cheng and Chunn as being in the administration of the center. The Co-Prosecutor read from one of Mr. Phann’s six OCIJ transcripts wherein the witness had admitted he had been chief of Kraing Ta Chan and that An had become his deputy in 1972. After consultation with his duty counsel, Mr. Phann denied he had ever been chief of the center and said he was not at Kraing Ta Chan at that time. He dismissed the claim saying “some of the responses the interviewer wrote (were) incorrect.” He did concede going to the center to deliver food supplies and rice for the staff. The witness could describe the security center. He remembered two wooden buildings with tile roofs, 5 meters by 6 meters long, and that the whole compound was approximately 100 meters by 100 meters. He knew nothing about an interrogation building and nothing about what offences the prisoners had committed. Mr. Srea quoted again from an OCIJ statement wherein Mr. Phann had said the prisoners were opponents of the regime, CIA or White Khmer. Mr. Phann recalled that these charges were not related to Kraing Ta Chan but to others who had been arrested on these grounds. He said that, in 1973, “there were 4-5 prisoners, ten prisoners at most.” He acknowledged that the “serious prisoners” wore metal shackles but not the “light-term prisoners.” During the “brief period” he was there, there were so few prisoners that they were fed properly.
Co-Prosecutor Dale Lysak challenged Mr. Phann on his recollections. He cited that Chhim, the former secretary of Tram Kok district, under whom the witness had worked, had named Mr. Phann as the chief of Kraing Ta Chan security office and that this was congruent with Mr. Phann’s own OCIJ interview. Mr. Phann complained that “the statements (the prosecutor) read out (were) mostly untrue.” He denied that Chhim had received reports on Kraing Ta Chan from him, that he had left when it was transformed into a prison in 1973 so he could not have written any such reports.
Mr. Lysak continued from the OCIJ record contradicting the above figure of “at most 10 prisoners:” “In 1974, there began to be many prisoners. After I was gone, lines of people were brought in. When I returned to visit in 1975, the site hadn’t expanded but there were probably hundreds of prisoners.” Mr. Phann said he had told OCIJ that the information he was providing was second hand because he was not there. He had been three provinces away clearing land for a dam.
Mr. Lysak refreshed the witness’s memory that his prior testimony contained a description of the interrogation building as being 1.5 meters by 1.5 meters, no walls but a thatched roof. Phann confirmed this and said it had been built in the conversion. Mr. Lysak recounted that Say Sen remembered that Mr. Phann had been present during his interrogation by Pi who was from the Tram Kok District Committee. Ta An had been the note taker. Mr. Phann gave a sympathetic portrait of his relationship with Say Sen whom he had so “pitied” when he was 12-13, that he had used his authority within the commune to intervene, saving Say Sen’s life by getting him the job tending the buffalo. Phann Chhen dismissed what Say Sen had to say as he “was too young to know anything.” He allowed that his only participation in the interrogation was “to listen…briefly…when he had come from afar.”
Phann Chhen outlined that the commune meetings were held twice a month at the District Office. He had had to attend “to exchange experience, learn policies, and (get briefed on) the military situation and the economic situation.” The meetings were held at “a hideout” in
Krabei Prey village. “Nev” and “Kit” (spelling for both?) were the teaching cadres from the District. The attendees would be given information that they then would disseminate further at the commune level. For example, they learned how to dig trenches and to lie in them in case of emergency; to actively plan on how to meet the quotas for rice, corn and bean crops. Mr. Phann pled that in his “role as a local cadre, (he) did not know what the documents were” from which the “information” was imparted. He did recall that Revolutionary Flag magazines and other communist propaganda were displayed at many of the meetings.
The witness agreed with the interview statement that he had said the CIA, Americans, and White Khmer (the Yuon) were the enemies along with anyone who did not follow the party line. Meetings chaired by the District Committee focused on inculcating fear of the enemy into the cadres “in order for (them) to be more vigilant, to strengthen (their) stance and not to become an enemy” themselves.
Phann Chhen knew Ta Mok “since he came in from the forest” in late 1971. (Meaning: The resistance had emerged from the forest at the base of a mountain). Phann Chhen chronicled that the villagers were assembled for “a big night meeting.” (Meetings were usually held at night because of fear of aerial bombardment). Ta Mok “spoke about the revolutionary movement against the enemy. He stirred the spirit of the people to rise up and to engage in whatever they could do for the movement.” His and Ta Mok’s houses were about 15 kilometers apart so they would see each other at meetings at the District Office. Phann Chhen credited Ta Mok with saving his life. Mr. Phann had run into trouble while he was working with monks organizing housing for refugees displaced due to fighting. A group of 40 people had been arrested by the district because of minor conflicts (for example, over coconut trees). So, he released them. Mr. Phann said he had no authority to do it but said he had done “what (he) thought was right.” Ta Mok intervened with Soam and Pheng (“the sector”) when Mr. Phann “was fearful” he was about to be killed for his mistake.
Ta Mok would sign his letters assigning people to specific tasks as Ta 15. Mr. Phann “didn’t dare ask why he was known as Ta 15.” The Co-Prosecutor read in that Ta Mok was chairman of the Southeast Zone and “a party center member” which gave him the authority to also govern other zones. The witness knew that Ta Mok also had control over the North Zone because, when he had been on the rubber plantation, they had followed instructions from Ta Mok. He defined “the party center” as “the core.”All information was gathered for this center.
Mr. Lysak questioned whether he knew that during the Khmer Rouge regime there was a prohibition on moral misconduct. Indeed, he did. When they had all fled to the mountain, they were in crowded living conditions. Through word of mouth they “learned each other’s personal information.” Mr. Phann became apprised that Ta Mok had killed his son-in-law Ren, a former division commander for having repeated affairs. Ta Mok’s daughter remarried and is still alive.
Ta Mok had no sons.
Phann Chhen will continue his testimony tomorrow, February