Phnom Penh - A survivor of a notorious Khmer Rouge torture
prison wept Wednesday as he told Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes
tribunal how the Maoist regime murdered his wife after accusing the
couple of being CIA and KGB spies.
Bou Meng, 68, who is one of only a handful of survivors from the
S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, told the court he escaped death by
painting portraits of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot but said his wife
suffered the same fate as more than 15,000 people who were murdered
after being detained at the torture facility.
'They regularly beat me, and one day, they used an electrical wire
to electrocute me, and I immediately fell unconscious,' he said.
'They also poured water over my face, and then I also fell
unconscious.'
Bou Meng's testimony came in the trial of former S-21 chief Kaing
Guek Eav, known by his revolutionary alias Duch, who faces charges of
crimes against humanity, premeditated murder and breeches of the
Geneva Conventions.
He is one of five former Khmer Rouge leaders facing trial for
their roles in the deaths of up to 2 million people through
execution, starvation or overwork during the group's 1975-1979 rule.
Duch has admitted guilt and apologized for his crimes, but his
lawyers have sought to prove his role in the torture and executions
was minimal because, they said, he was only acting on orders.
But Bou Meng told the court he had witnessed Duch instruct guards
to beat prisoners and recounted the horrific scenes he saw when he
first arrived at the prison.
'I arrived in the group cell, and everyone in there looked like
hell,' he said. 'I was dizzy when I entered the room and so scared.'
The artist and teacher said Khmer Rouge soldiers fooled him and
his wife into travelling to the prison by telling them they had been
given jobs at a college of fine arts.
'I was planting vegetables and digging canals, so I was happy that
I would teach students at the college of fine arts because I thought
then I would be working in my profession,' he said.
When they arrived in Phnom Penh, the two were handcuffed and
blindfolded and, like all prisoners sent to S-21, taken to be
photographed, interrogated and forced to sign confessions, Bou Meng
said.
'That photograph is the only photograph I have of my wife,' he
said. 'The others were destroyed after the Khmer Rouge came to power.'
He said interrogators beat him with sticks and whips, asked him
when he joined the CIA, the US intelligence agency, and how many
people he had recruited as well as interrogated him about the Soviet
intelligence agency.
'They asked me all about the KGB and the CIA but did not even know
what they were,' he said.
Like fellow S-21 survivor Vann Nath, Bou Meng was eventually taken
to a separate part of the facility and forced to paint portraits of
Pol Pot, who died in 1998.
He never saw his wife again.
'I survived because I could paint the perfect portrait of Pol
Pot,' he said. 'I am here because I do not know what happened to my
wife and why she is gone and why she was tortured.'
The tribunal was established in 2006 after a decade of
negotiations between the Cambodian government and the United Nations.
Duch is the only one of the five former Khmer Rouge leaders so far
to be indicted on war crimes charges, and if convicted, faces a
maximum sentence of life in prison.
USA
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