Details on Au Kanseng Security Center Location

Today, witness Moeung Chandy concluded her testimony and provided more detail about her time in the Au Kanseng Security Center, after which oral submissions were heard regarding requests by the Defense Teams to admit several documents into evidence before the testimony of expert 2-TCE-88.

 

Moeung Chandy

At the beginning of the session, the Trial Chamber Greffier confirmed the presence of all parties, with Nuon Chea following the proceedings from the holding cell, and announced that the remainder of Moeung Chandy’s testimony would be heard today. There was no reserve witness.

The floor was then granted to the Nuon Chea Defense Team. Nuon Chea Defense Counsel Liv Sovanna asked whether she had seen human gallbladders being hung up in the kitchen. She replied that she had not seen the human gallbladder but only heard the cadre say that he used to consume human gallbladders.

Turning to the next topic, Mr. Sovanna wanted to know about the fate of the Jarai minority in the security center. She recounted that some of the Jarai women who were detained with her disappeared. Some of them were tied up and disappeared. None of the Khmer women who were detained with her disappeared. She did not see any villager when she was imprisoned.

Mr. Sovanna then asked her whether she saw any jackfruit trees in the area where she had claimed to have seen the pits. She replied that she did not see any jackfruit plantation. “We were scared and I did not notice whether the area was a jackfruit plantation.”

Next, Mr. Sovanna asked whether she witnessed the cadre Auy consume the gallbladder. She answered that he had said that he used to drink human gallbladders. Another woman also said so. He spoke to his other security guards about it, so he did not tell the prisoners.

When the Vietnamese arrived, she did not see Ta Auy, but she saw another guard. The situation was confusing when the Vietnamese arrived, so she could not recall when she saw him last. With this, Mr. Sovanna finished his line of questioning and the floor was handed to the Khieu Samphan Defense Team.

National Defense Counsel Kong Sam Onn inquired how long she picked vegetables after her arrival in Au Kanseng Security Center. She answered that she was detained in the building first and was allowed to pick vegetables later. This took place after she delivered her baby. They allowed her to engage in some outside activities when they trusted her, she said, and believed that she would not believe. She spent several months in another building that she was transferred to after having spent one night in a room that was locked. The first building was a hut with a locked door. The second building was “a long building”. The roof of this building was made out of bamboo leaves. They all stayed in that building.

Mr. Sam Onn asked whether other people were also detained in that building. She replied that there were also Jarai people and other people she did not know. She was close only to those families that she was brought in with her. There were three or four other women who were brought in from somewhere else in her building. The women in her building were given different tasks: some had to cut wood in the forest and some others had to pick vegetables. She was tasked to pick vegetables or work in the kitchen. He slept in the building during night time and worked during the day. She said that she might have mistaken the distance between her sleeping place and the interrogation room, since she only estimated. She thought it might have been twenty to thirty meters.

After delivering her baby, she was assigned to work in the kitchen, to pick vegetables, and sometimes to carry wood from the forest, “and that was hard work.”

Whenever they wanted to build a building, they would be tasked to go and carry wood planks. The task was very difficult.

When Mr. Sam Onn asked about the incident in which one woman had said that her husband had been tortured, Senior Assistant Prosecutor Travis Farr objected on the basis that she had not talked about one single incident but about several women who told her that her husbands had been tortured. Thus, Mr. Sam Onn asked how many women told her that their husbands had been tortured. She replied that the men were interrogated after the women. Since the men walked unsteadily, they assumed that their men had been tortured. One woman talked to her about this. “That woman said that she discussed with other women that their husbands may have been tortured and she came to tell me about that. Normally, the husbands of those women received the same fate. Male detainees were mistreated.” The interrogation lasted until three or, after which the woman told her about this. The husband was very weak. They were not allowed to work, “since it was the interrogation day”. They were not trusted yet at the time.

A while after the Jarai people were trusted, they were untied. She did not know how long the Jarai people remained tied up with a string. She had lived in Ratanakiri before, which is why she could recognize their language. She does not know how to speak Jarai. She could recognize the languages of three minorities in Ratanakiri. They were not detained for long in the center. The Jarai slept in one side of the building. Their clothing was distinctive from their clothing. She compared this to the situation in the court room, in which the judges wore red robes, while some lawyers wore black or purple ones. The Jarai were wearing different types of colors. They did not have bags of clothes with them.

He then turned to the jackfruit plantation and asked whether she had heard of a jackfruit plantation and where this was located. National Civil Party Lead Co-Lawyer Pich Ang objected to the question, since it had been put to the witness already three times before, he said.

Mr. Sam Onn moved on and asked about the B-52 crater that she had mentioned before. She did not know the dimensions of it. When she went there for the first time, the crater was deep. The second time she went there, it was covered. She saw it the first time when she was assigned to pick up vegetables. She did not dare to go close to the pit, since she smelled the decomposing bodies and was afraid of ghosts. Mr. Sam Onn wanted to know whether there was any landmark that she could recognize. She replied that there was nothing special there and that there was only forest around there and potato plants. There were trees and bushes. There were large trees in the forest. She did not know what trees there were. There were cassava plants. He wanted to know how tall these cassava plants were, to which she answered that they were higher than her height. There were many of them. The cassava plants were in the vicinity of the pits. It was covered with dirt when she went there the second time. The cassava plants were grown in that area only later. She saw the cassava plants when the pit was covered with dirt. The cassava plants were far from the pit.

At this point, the President informed the defense counsel that his time had run out. He thanked Ms. Chandy and dismissed her.

The President informed the parties that oral submission and responses would be heard after the break regarding requests by the Defense Teams to admit into evidence a number of documents for the testimony of 2-TCE-88.

 

 

Oral submissions

After the break, the President referred to E3/87 and E3/87/1, which were submissions to admit into evidence several documents before the testimony of 2-TCE-88, which was scheduled to take place on March 14. He gave the floor the Co-Prosecutors to react to the requests by the two Defense Teams.

Deputy Co-Prosecutor William Smith clarified that they did not have any objection to the documents that the Khieu Samphan Defense Team had requested to admit into evidence. He said that some of the documents had differing probative values. As for the application by the Nuon Chea Defense Team to admit 17 documents, Mr. Smith said that the Co-Prosecutors did not object to 15 documents of these. These might be helpful to ascertain the truth. They related to documents written by the experts. The Co-Prosecutors objected to the remaining two documents that the Nuon Chea Defense Team had requested.

As for the first document, a book by William Schabas – he explained that they opposed the documents, since the issue on whether genocide occurred was up to the bench.[1] A legal opinion by an academic did not assist, he said, the judges in deciding whether genocide occurred. Moreover, Mr. Smith told the court that it contained little factual discussion. As for the second document they objected to, he said that it did not relate directly to the expert and was only remotely related to this trial chamber. It was of “extremely negligibly probative value.”[2]

The floor was then given to the Civil Party Lead Co-Lawyers. Marie Guiraud said that the Civil Party lawyers relied on the Chamber’s wisdom.

Judge Jean-Marc Lavergne said that some of the documents had not been presented in an orderly manner in the annex by the Nuon Chea Defense Team’s filing.[3] He asked the Nuon Chea Defense Team to properly ascertain that the numbers were correct. If this was not, the Nuon Chea Defense Team should file an application to correct them.

International Nuon Chea Defense Counsel Victor Koppe said that he would check the numbers again. He then reacted to the Prosecution’s response. He generally remarked that there were only two publications on the case file relating to Hinton, which is why they felt it was necessary to increase the number of documents that were admitted before the expert would testify. One of them included the book Why Did They Kill. He explained that the documents they requested to be admitted fell into three categories

• Three documents related to the background and methodology of research
• Nine were related to the expert and, according to Mr. Koppe, a possible lack of neutrality
• General documents.

He explained that half of the documents had not been available at the beginning of the trial and half of them only available after the decision by the Chamber on the scope of the expertise of February 2016. Mr. Koppe said that it was not up to the expert to comment on whether genocide occurred. However, the document by Schabas should be admitted, since the expert challenged that notion. This should be understood as background information for the expert. The second document challenged by the Prosecution was also meant as background information.

Lastly, the floor was given to the Khieu Samphan Defense Team. Since the Prosecution had not objected to the documents requested by the Khieu Samphan Defense Team, Mr. Sam Onn had no further remarks.

At this point, the President adjourned the hearing. It will resume on Wednesday, March 9 2016, at 9 am with the testimony of 2-TCW-893 in relation to the treatment of the Cham.

 

[1] E387.1.14.

[2] E387.1.16.

[3] Numbers 2 and 3.

Featured Image: Witness Moeung Chandy (ECCC: Flickr).