Yachties' Khmer torturer spared

By Lindsay Murdoch
The Sydney Morning Herald
January 7, 2012

THE Khmer Rouge commander who sent two Australian yachtsmen to Cambodia's notorious Tuol Sleng interrogation centre, where they were tortured and killed in 1978, will escape facing justice at a United Nations tribunal in Phnom Penh.

Meas Muth (pictured), now in his 70s, was chief of the Khmer Rouge navy when his men captured Ronald Keith Dean and David Lloyd Scott after their yacht had strayed into Cambodian waters at a time when the world was still unaware of a reign of terror under fanatical Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.

The UN tribunal is set to drop charges against Meas Muth and Sou Met, the Khmer Rouge's air force chief, despite evidence of their crimes against humanity following the intervention of the Cambodian strongman Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge cadre.

Prime Minister Hun Sen has told the UN he will not allow any further trials at the tribunal after the conclusion of hearings against five ageing Khmer Rouge leaders.

Dean, a 35-year-old Sydney hotel and club worker, and Scott, believed to be about the same age from Western Australia, suffered extreme torture at Tuol Sleng, possibly for months. Both men signed false confessions saying they were CIA agents in an apparent attempt to avoid their executions.

A guard at Tuol Sleng has told the tribunal that one of the Westerners, possibly one of the Australians, was burned alive on a road outside the centre.

Three guards took him outside the centre, sat him down on the road, placed a tyre over him and set him alight, said Cheam Soeu, who worked as a guard at the centre for two years.

The trials, officially called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, are in chaos following bitter internal disagreements and staff resignations.

Mr Meas Muth, who rose to the rank of general in Cambodia's military after defecting from the Khmer Rouge, is believed to be a high-level adviser to Mr Hun Sen's Defence Ministry.

UN and other investigators have found that Mr Meas Muth and Mr Sou Met participated in a plot to purge the Khmer Rouge of ''undesirable elements'' that resulted in thousands and quite possibly tens of thousands of deaths. Neither man could be contacted for comment.

Mr Meas Muth told Cambodian journalists last year that he was not one of the Khmer Rouge leaders most responsible for what happened during the organisation's rule and therefore should not be put on trial.