KRT-Khmer Rouge Trial Portal

Tuol Sleng torture survivor starts group for Khmer Rouge victims

KRTrial — 2010-02-05T02:41:20+01:00

CHUM Mey, a 79-year-old who is among the few known living survivors of Tuol Sleng prison, has established a new organisation to support victims of the Khmer Rouge. The former mechanic testified in June as a civil party in the Khmer Rouge tribunal’s first case, that of Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Guek Eav. On Wednesday, he received official permission from the Ministry of Interior to establish his group ...

Civil party reforms at KRT

KRTrial — 2010-02-02T20:02:09+01:00

THE Khmer Rouge tribunal will convene a plenary session next week to discuss reforms to civil party participation, including the consolidation of their courtroom representation under a single set of co-lawyers. “Due to the high numbers of Civil Party applications received in relation to Case 002 and the complexity of the case, there is a need to streamline and consolidate Civil Party participation,” the court said in a statement on Thursday ...

The ECCC Should Address Starvation to Fulfill its Mandate

KRTrial — 2010-01-20T19:25:51+01:00

Constant hunger was perhaps the most universal form of suffering endured by Cambodians during the period of Democratic Kampuchea (DK) from 1975-1979. The Khmer Rouge (KR) regime forced all Cambodians to eat communally and outlawed eating privately or raising private crops. These actions effectively stripped the population of the ability to feed itself and made Cambodians wholly reliant on communal rations for sustenance. These rations however, were woefully insufficient, typically consisting of two small ladles...

KR Tribunal: Civil party increase for Case No 2

KRTrial — 2010-01-11T18:41:21+01:00

The Khmer Rouge tribunal has so far approved 246 civil party applications for its second case, up from 93 for the case against Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, UN court spokesman Lars Olsen said Thursday. The tribunal had received 3,533 civil party applications along with 3,598 complaints as of the end of December. All applications are to be processed by the time co-investigating judges issue their closing order against Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan and Ieng Thirith ...

Chea Sim warns KRT against 'ill intentions'

KRTrial — 2010-01-11T18:36:13+01:00

A SENIOR government official has again warned the Khmer Rouge tribunal not to threaten national reconciliation and development, echoing earlier government concerns about additional prosecutions of former regime figures. “We oppose any attempts to use the chamber for ill-intentions that would have an impact on peace, national reconciliation and development, which are our hard-won achievements,” said Chea Sim, president of the Cambodian People’s Party ...

Govt marks liberation from KR

KRTrial — 2010-01-11T18:29:17+01:00

THOUSANDS turned out on Thursday morning for celebrations marking the 31st anniversary of the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge regime, reigniting an annual debate about the meaning and legacy of the event. During an official ceremony at the headquarters of the Cambodian People’s Party, party chairman Chea Sim paid tribute to the Vietnamese offensive that led the overthrew of Pol Pot in 1979 ...

A Hospital, a place to Die

KRTrial — 2009-12-30T18:25:42+01:00

If we feel sick, we go to the hospital and know the doctor will treat us. However, some people who went to a hospital located on the Wat Sokuntharam ground during the Pol Pot regime tried to find a way to leave the hospital after they were inside for a couple of days. During the Pol Pot regime, Wat Sokuntharam, also known as Wat Skun in Kampong Cham province, was one of the former hospitals. Mr. Pat Choy, 52, who presently is the Pana Village Chief, recalled what he experience while going for treatment with his family in the Khmer Rouge time ...

Khmer Rouge: Japan funds KRT records storehouse

KRTrial — 2009-12-30T02:18:52+01:00

Japan has pledged US$2 million for a storehouse of Khmer Rouge tribunal documents and a legal centre for the “socially vulnerable”, according to a press release issued Friday by the Japanese embassy in Phnom Penh. The storehouse will “enable Cambodian and foreign nationals who have interests in the tribunal, such as researchers, lawyers and students”, to access public court records, the release states. It will be housed next to the Bar Association building ...

New KRT co-prosecutor checks in

KRTrial — 2009-12-24T20:13:27+01:00

OF the cases he has tried, Andrew Cayley, the newly appointed international co-prosecutor at the Khmer Rouge tribunal, can identify only one that bears a strong resemblance to those at the Khmer Rouge tribunal: the case against Radislav Krstic, a Bosnian Serb Army commander who was charged in connection with the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which more than 8,000 men and boys were killed ...

Ieng Thirith charged with genocide at KRT

KRTrial — 2009-12-24T20:04:10+01:00

THE Khmer Rouge tribunal on Monday charged former social action minister Ieng Thirith with genocide, a court spokeswoman said, making her the fourth suspect to face the charge. Yuko Maeda said the case against Ieng Thirith had been expanded to include genocide and war crimes, as well as homicide, torture and persecution under the 1956 Cambodian penal code, which was in effect during the regime. Ieng Thirith had previously been charged with crimes against humanity ...

Lemonde bias claims continue

KRTrial — 2009-12-15T18:36:23+01:00

DEFENCE lawyers for former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary have prepared a new request for the disqualification of International Co-Investigating Judge Marcel Lemonde in response to bias allegations. International co-lawyer Michael Karnavas said the filing was submitted Friday, two days after the Pre-Trial Chamber rejected a similar request based on allegations made by a former staffer that Lemonde expressed a preference for inculpatory evidence ...

ECCC judges agree to apply controversial legal doctrine

KRTrial — 2009-12-12T00:13:35+01:00

JUDGES have ruled that joint criminal enterprise, a controversial form of liability under which suspects can be found responsible for crimes committed as part of a common plan, could apply at the Khmer Rouge tribunal, setting the stage for further debate on the issue between prosecutors and lawyers for the four regime leaders awaiting trial ...

Defence accuses KRT judge of bias

KRTrial — 2009-12-09T18:58:16+01:00

DEFENCE lawyers for former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary on Monday laid out fresh allegations of bias and rules violations on the part of international co-investigating judge Marcel Lemonde in filings that reiterated their earlier call for his disqualification. The filings, submitted Monday, refer to a December 2 statement from Wayne Bastin, former chief of the Intelligence and Analysis Unit of the Office of the Co-Investigating Judges (OCIJ) ...

A promising, if tenuous, start

KRTrial — 2009-12-08T19:50:44+01:00

LAST month, the first trial of a Khmer Rouge leader ended with a simple, though not surprising, request from the defendant: Set me free. For almost nine months, Cambodians have watched with fascination the trial of Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch. As commander of the infamous Tuol Sleng S-21 prison, Duch oversaw the torture and execution of thousands of Cambodians. His testimony brought into stark view a picture of the Khmer Rouge that had been buried in politically self-serving caricature since 1979 ...

KR court must widen net: group

KRTrial — 2009-12-08T19:42:20+01:00

THE Khmer Rouge tribunal will fall short of its responsibility to prosecute those “most responsible” for the atrocities committed under Democratic Kampuchea in the absence of investigations of further suspects, Amnesty International said in a statement. Responding to the appointment of new International Co-Prosecutor Andrew Cayley, announced by the UN-backed court last week, Amnesty said the British national should review the decision announced by acting International Co-Prosecutor William Smith in September that only five more suspects will be investigated by the tribunal beyond the five who are now in detention ...

Nuon Chea team asks for probe

KRTrial — 2009-12-07T18:24:30+01:00

LAWYERS for Khmer Rouge Brother No 2 Nuon Chea have called on tribunal judges to investigate what they describe as blatant attempts by the government to block the testimony of six officials who were requested to testify in September. The filing, dated Monday, cites an interview in which spokesman Khieu Kanharith said the government had decided that the officials should not appear at the court. It also refers to a speech in which Hun Sen said he had personally rejected a request ...

KRT prosecutor appointed

KRTrial — 2009-12-04T02:16:35+01:00

THE Khmer Rouge tribunal on Wednesday announced the appointment of veteran war crimes lawyer Andrew Cayley as international co-prosecutor, filling a position that was left vacant by the departure of Robert Petit in September. A tribunal press release noted Cayley’s extensive experience in international criminal cases, including more than 10 years at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and two years as senior prosecuting counsel at the International Criminal Court ...

Bid for release rocks KR case

KRTrial — 2009-12-01T18:49:05+01:00

LAST week’s round of closing statements in the case of Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, was supposed to be a chance for all parties to refine their arguments and address outstanding questions as they put their cases directly to judges for the last time. In the aftermath of Duch’s request for release on Friday, however, a flurry of new questions has emerged, some of them bigger than the case itself ...

S-21 chief’s attorney seeks lenient sentence

KRTrial — 2009-11-30T19:14:45+01:00

FRENCH defence lawyer Francois Roux on Thursday scolded prosecutors for describing Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, as a driving force behind Khmer Rouge-era executions, saying his client was guilty only of the “crime of obedience” and should not be made into a scapegoat. “Has Duch become Pol Pot?” Roux wondered aloud before noting that the prison chief had accepted responsibility for 12,380 of the estimated 1.7 million deaths that occurred at the hands of the Khmer Rouge ...

Duch asks to be set free

KRTrial — 2009-11-30T19:10:40+01:00

Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, on Friday asked judges at the Khmer Rouge tribunal to release him, and his lawyer later clarified that the former chief of Tuol Sleng prison was seeking an acquittal on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges. Duch’s surprise request came at the end of a 17-minute statement, his last before the Trial Chamber, during which he acknowledged his involvement in Khmer Rouge-era crimes ...