Before starting his third day on the witness stand, Kaing Guek Eav, the former head of Khmer Rouge detention center S-21, was told by the court’s president that he was free to incriminate himself, as his trial had finished and he is already serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity.
Yet when asked yesterday about multiple accusations of rape at S-21 by Civil Party Co-Lawyer Marie Guiraud during testimony for Case 002/02 involving Khmer Rouge leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, Mr. Guek Eav vehemently denied the charges, exclaiming: “Who dared to engage in sexual rape? Nobody.
“I don’t believe it was that easy to rape a woman in the open,” he added. “That person would have been beheaded.”
Ms. Guiraud continued to ask him about specific testimony from previous witnesses who claimed to have either seen or heard about rapes at the detention center. But Mr. Guek Eav refused to accept the allegations, even going so far as to defend the same Khmer Rouge leaders he had spent the previous days incriminating.
He started the line of questioning by admitting to one rape at S-21 involving one of his old teachers.
“I only knew of one case. A young man raped my former teacher. It was related to a mistake made during the interrogation process,” he said. “I believe there were not many instances of rape at S-21.”
But as he was asked more questions about specific instances of rape, he became more bullish and animated, slamming any assumption that rape was allowed at S-21 and even saying the accusations were fabricated.
In between his vehement denials, he managed to slip in excuses about why he may not have known about rapes at S-21, claiming at one point that it was his subordinate Ta Hor’s responsibility to handle any cases of sexual assault.
“It was not my responsibility,” he said. “And this does not reflect CPK [Communist Party of Kampuchea] policy.”
Mr. Guek Eav, known to many as Duch, started the day with more questions from Assistant Prosecutor Dale Lysak about the specifics of interrogations at S-21. He told the court the methods of torture often changed based on who was in charge.
When Ta Nat, Mr. Guek Eav’s predecessor, was in charge, electrocutions were more common and more prisoners were killed during torture. But when he took the reins, physical beatings were more prevalent.
He revealed a variety of horrifying facts about interrogations, including that women were often tortured by the wives of those in charge of S-21, and electrocutions were carried out by attaching phone lines to each of a prisoner’s big toes. His superior Vorn Vet suggested they use plastic bags to suffocate prisoners because they would not leave any bruises.
But Mr. Guek Eav seemingly tried to absolve himself of some of the blame for the torture that took place at S-21, saying: “S-21 was only an instrument of the party.”
Once Mr. Lysak finished his questioning for the day, Ms. Guiraud began to ask questions about specific prisoners killed at S-21 and the situation surrounding their arrest, beginning with Chao Seng, founder of the Pedagogical Institute of Cambodia.
Mr. Guek Eav was particularly remorseful when asked about Mr. Seng, expressing multiple times that he wished he could meet with his wife and another relative to express his sorrow and anguish about what happened to him.
He told the court he had been instructed by superior Son Sen and the “party center” to arrest Mr. Seng, but to give him a different name in S-21’s records.
“I could not protect him. That is the truth. For me, Chao Seng did many good things,” he said. “I want to meet them [Mr. Seng’s wife and a relative] to express my regret and apologize that I could not protect their man.”
He says he tried to keep Mr. Seng alive, but was asked by Mr. Chea himself where he was and why he was still alive after a few months at S-21.
Ms. Guiraud then moved on to four westerners who were killed at S-21, focusing on Michael Scott Deeds and another man, both of whom were captured by Navy forces along the coast.
Mr. Guek Eav said once the men were brought to S-21, he was ordered by Mr. Chea to burn their bodies.
“He told me in person ‘we are not Cuba, exchanging prisoners for other prisoners or goods’,” he said. “They had to be burned to ashes so that there was no evidence remaining that any westerner was arrested and smashed by us. That was the strict instruction I had to follow.”
Mr. Guek Eav said the men were burned along with car tires and their ashes were dumped into a pond along Mao Tse Tung Boulevard.
He also took time out to refute the translation of a widely circulated quote attributed to him and to the larger Khmer Rouge propaganda machine by historians and witnesses. The oft-mentioned “It is better to arrest 10 innocent people than let one traitor go” was incorrect, according to Mr. Guek Eav.
“This is wrong. It has been mistranslated,” he said. “Son Sen told me ‘to keep is no gain, to remove is no loss’.”
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/25992/duch-denies-rapes-at-s-21/