" To toture the prisoner is my duty", Duch

By: HIM Sokunthea

PHNOM PENH – The former Khmer Rough prison chief told Cambodia’s war crimes court on Monday that being a prison chief was not his willingness, yet it was the only way to survive him and his family.

On the hearing today, Duch talks about his main responsibility in S-21 during 1975-1979.

He shows the whole court about the report which he wrote to brother, Sen San, about the suspect’s wrong doing.

“This guy is talkative, dishonest and he may provoke the trouble to our party”, the report say.

“If a man is suspected of wrong doing, his wife and the entire family member would be charged the same”

He told the court that it was not his intention to torture the prisoner but he had to fulfill his task honestly.

S- 21 was unique in the network of security centres given its direct link to the Central Committee and its role in the detention and execution of CPK cadre.

“S-21 was the place to detain, interrogate and torture the suspect”, Duch told the court

Duch confessed that sometimes he had to torture the prisoner by his own, yet the prisoners were not allowed to kill unless he got the order from the top, Pol Pot.

Usually the suspects were from city dweller whose background was not good, the scholar, the educated people, Vietnamese people and anyone who could provoke trouble to the whole ANGKAR.

Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, was arrested by Cambodian authorities in May 1999, shortly after photojournalist Nic Dunlop found him hiding in a western Cambodian town. He is charged of war crime against humanity.