A Cambodian man touches leg restraints displayed at the the former Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison now known as the Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Thursday, July 22, 2010. The U.N.-backed Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal is scheduled to deliver its verdict on Monday, July 26, 2010, against Kaing Guek Eav, better know as Duch, the Khmer Rouge prison chief accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith) (Heng Sinith, AP / July 22, 2010)
By JERRY HARMER
Associated Press Writer
July 22, 2010
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The brother of one of a handful of Westerners killed by the Khmer Rouge returned to Cambodia for a landmark verdict in a war crimes tribunal, saying there can never be adequate justice for his family.
It was not clear how Rob Hamill's brother, Kerry, fell into the hands of the brutal communist regime. Kerry Hamill was 28 when his yacht was blown off course into Cambodian waters in 1978 and he was captured. He and shipmates Briton John Dewhirst and Canadian Stuart Glass were taken to Phnom Penh's S-21 prison, tortured and killed.
When the news reached his hometown of Hamilton, New Zealand more than one year later, it tore apart what had been a close-knit family. One brother committed suicide months later; Rob Hamill became a teenage drunk. His parents never recovered.
"There'll never be justice for our family," said Hamill, 46, noting his mother died seven years ago and did not get to witness the trial or hear its verdict. "I can't quite reconcile how justice can ever be served with the nature and the way these people's lives were taken."
A U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal will issue its first verdict Monday against a senior member of the Khmer Rouge, the ultra-communist regime blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians during their 1975-79 rule.
About a dozen Westerners were among the estimated 16,000 people held at S-21 before being killed.
As commander of S-21, Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Those who passed through the gates of his secret prison were deemed the worst enemies of the paranoid Pol Pot regime; spies, saboteurs, traitors — and foreigners. Many were tortured. Interrogators pulled out toenails, drained blood and electrocuted prisoners to extract confessions.
In 1979 after the Vietnamese overthrew the Khmer Rouge, Kerry Hamill's so-called confession of espionage was among the meticulous records discovered at S-21.
Rob Hamill, a rower who represented New Zealand at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, said his family learned of his brother's death 16 months after he disappeared. Their parents read in a newspaper he was executed after two months at S-21.
Last year Rob Hamill spoke at Duch's trial, the only Westerner to do so as a victim, and tried to convey his family's suffering.
He says confronting Duch in court has helped him deal with the grief that has haunted his life, but forgiveness for his brother's killer still eludes him.
"I wanted to forgive Duch so that it would allow me to move on — until I went to S-21 and I got to see what this guy created," he said. "Any compassion I had for him at that time went out the window.
"Since then, time has a funny way of warping things," he said. "I've got an internal battle going on and maybe this sentencing will somehow further that process."
On his first visit Hamill says he was an emotional wreck. This time he said he feels more in control, more at peace and believes his brother Kerry would approve of the way the family is finally moving on.
"I think he'd be very proud of what we're trying to do as a family to represent him after 30 years of our own family suppressing it and not talking about what happened and the effect it had on us all as a family," he said.
"I think this is a very special time and I'd like to think he's looking down and saying 'well it's about bloody time.'"
Rob Hamill has requested a face-to-face meeting with Duch after the verdict to try to find out more about Kerry's fate. So far he's had no answer.
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