Khmer murder leads to quest

NADJA HAINKE
Northern Territorian News
July 16th, 2010

THE brother of a man who was brutally murdered by the Khmer Rouge is urging Territorians to help piece together his last steps.

Kerry Hamill, 27, was tortured and forced to confess to being a CIA agent before the Cambodians killed the man.

He spent nearly two years in Darwin before buying a yacht and being captured in Cambodian waters in August 1978.

His younger brother Rob Hamill (pictured), of Te Pahu in New Zealand, testified at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in the case against the party's torture master Guek Eav Kaing - known as Comrade Duch - in Phnom Penh last year.

The verdict is set to be handed down on July 26.

Mr Hamill, 46, is now asking Territorians who had met his brother during his time in Darwin to shed some light on events before the brutal murder.

He said any information, photographs - or even video footage - was "precious" and would help the family come to terms with the tragic loss.

"Just anything would help," he told the Northern Territory News.

Kerry Hamill arrived in Darwin as part of an overseas adventure after Cyclone Tracy hit on Christmas Eve in 1974.

It is believed he worked with Riteway Concrete, helping build Anula school, before moving in with Canadian Stuart Glass and his wife Susan.

The two men bought the Foxy Lady and together with Englishmen John Dewhurst sailed around southern Asia when their boat was blown off course.

Mr Glass was killed as soon as the crew were captured by the Khmer Rouge.

The other two members were held at the S21 prison - a former high school which was turned into a torture facility - until they died.

Rob Hamill, a father-of-three, said the family were unaware of the man's whereabouts for 16 months until the local paper splashed news of his death.

"It was shocking - completely and utterly shocking," he said.

The Khmer Rouge killed and tortured thousands of people while they governed the country from 1975 to 1979.

It was one of the bloodiest genocides in world history.

Duch, who as a young student won national mathematics prizes, designed the torture factory, in which 20,000 people are believed to have died.