File photo of Duch taken in 1977, the once-feared chief of Tuol Sleng Torture and Execution Centre.The Press.co.nz
28th March, 2009
It is 31 years since Kiwi Kerry Hamill was tortured and killed in a Cambodian school-turned-prison.
On Monday, his brother, rowing great Rob Hamill, expects to see the first flickers of accountability as one of the largest criminal hearings of modern times opens.
Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, ran the most notorious torture centre during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror. It was where Hamill was killed, along with two friends and thousands of Cambodians.
Eav faces charges of crimes against humanity before the United Nations-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, which has New Zealand judge and former governor-general Dame Silvia Cartwright among its five members.
"It's more accountability and to see that some sort of justice has been done. It's been over 30 years now and it's about time," Rob Hamill said.
Kerry Hamill, then 27, and friends were sailing from Singapore to Bangkok when their yacht strayed into Cambodian waters.
Along with his mates, Canadian Stuart Glass and Briton John Dewhirst, Hamill was arrested, detained, tortured and killed at Security Prison 21 (S21), formerly the Tuol Svay Prey High School.
As many as 1.7 million Cambodians perished in the Khmer Rouge reign of terror, 14,000 of them "class enemies" of the Communist regime executed at the S21 torture centre and prison, along with Hamill.
After his 1978 capture, Hamill was forced to write a 4000-word "confession" that claimed his father was a colonel in the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who had recruited him into the agency.
Under torture, he described in detail CIA plans to subvert the Khmer Rouge regime. Then he and Dewhirst were killed. Glass had been shot earlier.
Women, children and babies were also killed. Few inmates at the former school survived.
From August 1975, four months after the Khmer Rouge won the civil war, classrooms were converted into tiny prison and torture chambers, and windows were covered with iron bars and barbed wire.
Rob Hamill said Eav, 66, a former teacher, had caused "terrible pain".
He spoke of "the complete loss and grief that was felt and the impact it had on our family".
"I often think about how things could have been better. Not that things are terrible, but you know having Kerry in our lives would have [been better]."
He provided the court with a statement, but the expense and timing made it impossible to attend the historic trial.
"I am feeling a compelling sort of need to be out there now," Hamill said.
Christchurch Cambodian Association president Rasy Sao said Cambodians viewed the trials with some scepticism because of Prime Minister Hun Sen's past involvement with the Khmer Rouge.
"At this moment, the government in Cambodia does some things not very right. There is quite a lot of corruption," Sao said.
"If they do it [a trial] for someone, they should do it for themselves."
Sao said he visited his home country twice a year and had to stay quiet while he was there.
"If I say something wrong, maybe they will kill me straight away."
Cartwright said whatever political problems there might be in Cambodia, there was no problem with the judiciary.
"I have no hint of any corruption of any description amongst my Cambodian judge colleagues," she said.
Cartwright has been living in Phnom Penh and preparing for the trials since last July.
Once the trials begin, Cartwright will be allocated areas to focus on. "I might be asked to focus on how S21 or [the school] was actually established, or I might be asked to focus on methods of torture or focus on how many people died or something like that, and it will be my job to be totally on top of the evidence. The evidence goes to hundreds of thousands of pages," she said.
- with NZPA
28th March, 2009
It is 31 years since Kiwi Kerry Hamill was tortured and killed in a Cambodian school-turned-prison.
On Monday, his brother, rowing great Rob Hamill, expects to see the first flickers of accountability as one of the largest criminal hearings of modern times opens.
Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, ran the most notorious torture centre during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror. It was where Hamill was killed, along with two friends and thousands of Cambodians.
Eav faces charges of crimes against humanity before the United Nations-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, which has New Zealand judge and former governor-general Dame Silvia Cartwright among its five members.
"It's more accountability and to see that some sort of justice has been done. It's been over 30 years now and it's about time," Rob Hamill said.
Kerry Hamill, then 27, and friends were sailing from Singapore to Bangkok when their yacht strayed into Cambodian waters.
Along with his mates, Canadian Stuart Glass and Briton John Dewhirst, Hamill was arrested, detained, tortured and killed at Security Prison 21 (S21), formerly the Tuol Svay Prey High School.
As many as 1.7 million Cambodians perished in the Khmer Rouge reign of terror, 14,000 of them "class enemies" of the Communist regime executed at the S21 torture centre and prison, along with Hamill.
After his 1978 capture, Hamill was forced to write a 4000-word "confession" that claimed his father was a colonel in the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who had recruited him into the agency.
Under torture, he described in detail CIA plans to subvert the Khmer Rouge regime. Then he and Dewhirst were killed. Glass had been shot earlier.
Women, children and babies were also killed. Few inmates at the former school survived.
From August 1975, four months after the Khmer Rouge won the civil war, classrooms were converted into tiny prison and torture chambers, and windows were covered with iron bars and barbed wire.
Rob Hamill said Eav, 66, a former teacher, had caused "terrible pain".
He spoke of "the complete loss and grief that was felt and the impact it had on our family".
"I often think about how things could have been better. Not that things are terrible, but you know having Kerry in our lives would have [been better]."
He provided the court with a statement, but the expense and timing made it impossible to attend the historic trial.
"I am feeling a compelling sort of need to be out there now," Hamill said.
Christchurch Cambodian Association president Rasy Sao said Cambodians viewed the trials with some scepticism because of Prime Minister Hun Sen's past involvement with the Khmer Rouge.
"At this moment, the government in Cambodia does some things not very right. There is quite a lot of corruption," Sao said.
"If they do it [a trial] for someone, they should do it for themselves."
Sao said he visited his home country twice a year and had to stay quiet while he was there.
"If I say something wrong, maybe they will kill me straight away."
Cartwright said whatever political problems there might be in Cambodia, there was no problem with the judiciary.
"I have no hint of any corruption of any description amongst my Cambodian judge colleagues," she said.
Cartwright has been living in Phnom Penh and preparing for the trials since last July.
Once the trials begin, Cartwright will be allocated areas to focus on. "I might be asked to focus on how S21 or [the school] was actually established, or I might be asked to focus on methods of torture or focus on how many people died or something like that, and it will be my job to be totally on top of the evidence. The evidence goes to hundreds of thousands of pages," she said.
- with NZPA
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