Cambodia: Khmer Rouge genocide suspect asks court to release him - full text
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On Nov. 27, Kang Kek Ieu (also known as Comrade Duch), a former leader of the Khmer Rouge regime 1975-79, and former head of the Tuol Sleng interrogation centre in Phnom Penh (the capital), asked the judges of the UN-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) to release him from his trial for crimes against humanity and war crimes. This marked a dramatic reversal in his defence which had previously rested on accepting responsibility for the thousands of killings at the prison and expressing contrition. His new defence was based on his claims that he was not a senior member of the Khmer Rouge regime and that he merely obeyed orders to avoid being killed himself. The change, coming on the last day of his trial, surprised even his own UN appointed defence counsel.
Immediate Context
Duch's trial, the first of a Khmer Rouge figure to come before prosecutors, had begun in February 2009, nearly a decade after his arrest in May 1999. The trial had been characterized by the candour and detail of Duch's testimony concerning his involvement in the killing of thousands at Tuol Sleng prison; he had expressed his "excruciating remorse" and asked for the opportunity to apologise face-to-face to the prison's dozen survivors. The New York Times on Nov. 28, however, reported that in the trial's closing stages Duch's defence had seemed contradictory. One of his defence lawyers, Kar Savuth, had asserted that Duch was innocent of the charges while the other, Francois Roux, claimed that Duch was guilty but contrite, and that imprisoning him would serve no purpose. The defence team later confirmed that Duch was requesting release because he had not been a high-ranking member of the Khmer Rouge party machinery. Duch argued during the trial that at Tuol Sleng he had simply been following orders, and that to disobey them would have resulted in his death.
William Smith, one of the tribunal's co-prosecutors, expressed surprise at Duch's late appeal for release following his earlier statements of complicity and remorse. Smith suggested that, along with the inconsistent claims of the defence team, the plea suggested a failure on Duch's part to accept culpability for involvement in the Khmer Rouge campaign.
Reaction and Outlook
The tribunal, which was expected to reach a verdict in early 2010, made no immediate response to Duch's request to be freed, and he remained in custody. The court had no powers to impose the death penalty but prosecutor Smith noted on the Nov. 25 that the crimes with which Duch was charged should attract sentences of 45 years, with five years of the tariff eligible for cancellation in recognition of Duch's cooperation and time already served.
Duch's trial was the first of five of former Khmer Rouge figures due to come before the court: former chief political ideologist of the Khmer Rouge Nuon Chea, former Deputy Prime Minister Ieng Sary, former minister of social affairs Ieng Thirith, and former Chief of State Khieu Samphan. The joint trial of the remaining four, all members of the central committee (and thus significantly higher-ranking than Duch), was due to commence in 2011. These four defendants denied complicity in the regime's actions. Decisions also faced the tribunal on whether to pursue prosecutions against other surviving Khmer Rouge officials, a prospect strongly opposed by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who warned on Dec. 3 that he would rather see the court fail than expand its remit.
The court itself remained turbulent in the wake of reported incidences of corruption, including accusations that a portion of the salaries paid to Cambodian staff were being diverted to their superiors. Lawyers for the defendants in the pending 2011 trial had also called for an investigation into the neutrality of the court's international judges; the court rejected the call on Dec. 1. The court had, the Phnom Penh Post of Dec. 3 reported, been dogged by a lack of continuity, with a three-month gap between prosecutor Robert Petit's decision to stand down in September and his replacement by Briton Andrew Cayley in December.
Though the trial had, as the New York Times reported on Dec. 3, attracted relatively little international commentary, its sessions were attended by hundreds of ordinary Cambodians.
Historical Context
Cambodia became a French protectorate in 1863 when the then King was pressured into accepting French suzerainty. During the Second World War a large area of Cambodian territory was ceded to Thailand then the rest of the country was occupied by Japanese forces. After the war French colonial rule resumed though Cambodia was granted greater autonomy within French Indo-China. Independence movements grew throughout French-Indo China and in 1953 Cambodia gained independence from France.
In 1955 Prince Sihanouk's Popular Socialist Community party won legislative elections and several opposition figures fled the country. Prince Sihanouk moved the country further left in 1965 when he rejected US aid and relied more on Russia, France and China instead. General Lon Nol overthrew Prince Sihanouk in 1970 in a military coup and set up a right-wing military government. The USA provided arms to his regime to help it fight communist insurgents and the Viet Kong .
Fighting between the republican government and communist (Khmer Rouge) insurgents continued with the USA backing and arming the government and communist countries backing and arming the insurgents. The civil war came to an end in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh (the capital). The new Khmer Rouge government, headed by Prince Sihanouk, forcibly emptied the cities as part of a "Year Zero" plan to begin civilization anew from an agrarian base. Prince Sihanouk resigned the next year and was replaced by Pol Pot.
The Khmer Rouge regime was toppled by a Vietnamese invasion 1979 at which point the scale of the Cambodian genocide started to become clear to the outside world. Vietnamese forces remained in Cambodia for the next ten years fighting Khmer Rouge forces in the western border regions and other anti-government groups.
A peace settlement in 1991 included all the main factions in Cambodia's civil war and paved the way for Prince Sihanouk to return as head of state after renouncing the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge later left the peace process but suffered a string of serious defeats at the hands of the Cambodian Army. Elections were held in 1993 brought the royalist Funipec party to power, displacing the Cambodian People's Party who had ruled since the Vietnamese invasion.
Efforts to try former Khmer Rouge leaders and operative had begun following the end of Cambodia's civil war but complications delayed the creation of a tribunal for the purpose until 2003. Arguments had raged between the Cambodian authorities, who wanted to conduct the trials themselves, and the UN, which saw the Khmer Rouge genocide as a matter of international importance (comparable to those for which the international criminal tribunals for Rwanda and for the former Yugoslavia had been convened). The UN also doubted the capacity of the Cambodian courts to meet international legal standards. China, a former backer of the Khmer Rouge, opposed the UN's efforts to establish such an international tribunal. Other disagreement concerned the tribunal's scope; the UN and local authorities eventually agreed that only senior figures should be tried, to avoid the destabilising social effects of more widespread prosecutions. When a "mixed court", internationally funded but staffed principally by Cambodian judges, was convened in 2003, its trials were continually delayed (partly becuase of allegations of corruption).
