A Change of Guard

សូមស្តាប់វិទ្យុសង្គ្រោះជាតិ Please read more Khmer news and listen to CNRP Radio at National Rescue Party. សូមស្តាប់វីទ្យុខ្មែរប៉ុស្តិ៍/Khmer Post Radio.
Follow Khmerization on Facebook/តាមដានខ្មែរូបនីយកម្មតាម Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/khmerization.khmerican

Thursday, 6 August 2009

Khmer Rouge 'burned Westerner alive'

Cambodian farmers wait outside the court hall for the trail ...
AP
Wed Aug 5, 2009

Cambodian farmers wait outside the court hall for the trail of Kaing Guek Eav, also know as Duch, the former chief of the Khmer Rouge's S-21 prison, known as the Tuol Sleng genocide museum at the U.N.-backed tribunal in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2009.

(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

By Luke Hunt

ABC News, Australia

The Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal has been told how one Westerner, possibly an Australian, was burned alive outside a notorious prison in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.

Cheam Soeu, 52, told the United Nations-assisted trial about his two years as a guard at the dreaded S-21 prison.

He says in that time, four Westerners - an Australian, an American, a New Zealander and a Briton - were brought there and eventually killed.

He says one was taken outside the jail by three guards, told to sit down, a tyre was placed over him and he was set alight.

Cheam Soeu could not say which Westerner had died.

David Lloyd Scott of Western Australia and Ronald Keith Dean of New South Wales were among 11 Westerners who are known to have died at S-21 where prisoners were routinely tortured.

It was initially thought that up to 16,000 people were exterminated at the prison by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979.

Fresh evidence at the trial, however, suggests the death toll could be closer to 24,000.

No comments: