phnom voar, Kampot province – Former Khmer Rouge commander Chhouk Rin shouldered an AK-47 rifle for most of his adult life, but on Sunday he carried a battered briefcase for protection at his former base on Phnom Voar.
In 1994, Khmer Rouge guerrillas from Phnom Voar attacked a Sihanoukville-bound train killing 13 Cambodian passengers, looting valuables and taking three Western hostages whom they later executed and buried in shallow graves in the surrounding mountains.
Chhouk Rin was jailed briefly but cleared by a court in 2000 for the kidnapping and murder of the Australian, French and British backpackers.
On Wednesday, Chhouk Rin’s acquittal will be challenged by lawyers for the relatives of the deceased men at the Appeals Court in Phnom Penh.
The former guerrilla commander hopes the new evidence he carries in his fake-leather briefcase will keep him out of prison, but with strong international attention on the case, Chhouk Rin is somber about his chances.
Phnom Voar’s villagers—who celebrated for days after Chhouk Rin’s last acquittal—are less resigned to the prospect of losing their popular leader and warned they will rally against any attempt to take his freedom.
“I’m very, very tired of being reminded about the past,” Chhouk Rin said during an interview on Sunday at Phnom Voar.
“Many people know I was not involved in the killings. Someone ordered the killings but I had nothing to do with it,” he said as he leafed through hundreds of petitions marked with inked thumb prints from locals and government soldiers who swear he is innocent.
“I am not afraid of the court if it follows the law. But, I am afraid of pressure from the three countries,” he said.
Australian David Wilson, 29, Briton Mark Slater, 28, and French citizen Jean-Michel Braquet, 27, were riding the train to the beach on July 26, 1994 when Khmer Rouge forces detonated two mines under the rails and slammed the engine with bullets and B-40 rockets.
Most accounts state Chhouk Rin—who now denies he had any part in the attack—was in charge of the train ambush but handed over the 200-plus passengers, including the three Westerners, to his Phnom Voar superior, Nuon Paet.
The majority of the Cambodians were released within weeks, but Wilson, Slater and Braquet were held hostage and reportedly put to work digging paddy fields as Nuon Paet waited for a ransom of $150,000 in gold.
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who died in 1998, took special interest in the situation, using the hostages as a bargaining tool to demand the foreign governments involved cease military assistance to Cambodia.
Frantic negotiations to free the hostage faltered as government forces encircled the rebel base and unleashed artillery barrages to end the three-month stalemate. The shelling, Khmer Rouge officials maintain, was the beginning of the end for the hostages.
Chhouk Rin said he defected to the government on Oct 15, 1994 with around 100 fighters who opted for an amnesty passed that year by the government to exempt Khmer Rouge rebels from prosecution if they made peace with the government.
Within two weeks of Chhouk Rin’s defection, government soldiers overran Phnom Voar.
Nuon Paet escaped, but in the following days the bruised bodies of the three men were exhumed. Khmer Rouge defectors said the three were killed in late September.
Nuon Paet was sentenced to life in prison in 1999 for his part in the ambush and killings. Sam Bith, regional Khmer Rouge commander for Kampot during the train ambush was summoned to court in 2000. But, fearing conviction, he went into hiding.
He was apprehended by police in May and is now imprisoned in Phnom Penh awaiting trial.
Chhouk Rin was acquitted in 2000 by court officials who recognized his protection under the 1994 amnesty and his lawyer Puth Theavy said that will be his defense on Wednesday.
New witnesses have also come forward with information supporting Chhouk Rin’s claim that the three men were alive when he defected to the government, Puth Theavy said.
A former member of the Khmer Rouge recently handed Puth Theavy the Australian driving license once owned by David Wilson and other documents as proof she met the men when they were alive.
David Wilson is beaming a wide smile in the New South Wales drivers license, which is valid until April. Business cards and addresses jotted on pieces of scrap paper offer a rough chart to the young Australian’s journey through Southeast Asia.
“These documents and more than 20 witnesses will prove Chhouk Rin was not there when they were killed,” Puth Theavy said.
“The three were still alive when he defected.”
Australian Ambassador Louise Hand said on Monday that Chhouk Rin’s trial will be watched closely.
“We have made representation to the government over a long period of time and have a strong interest in seeing justice done for David Wilson and his family,” Hand said.
British Embassy officials also continue to monitor trials of those suspected of involvement in the death of Mark Slater.
Phnom Voar residents boarded trucks headed for Phnom Penh to protest Chhouk Rin’s arrest in 2000 but were stopped in Kampot town by authorities.
Feelings were again running high on Sunday among several of Chhouk Rin’s former comrades who said they will not stand by and see him sent to prison.
“I will be angry. I will not stay quiet if they do like this. I will protest by the law, but not against the law,” said Phnom Voar resident Ouch Noun.
Other residents in the area hinted of trouble if Chhouk Rin’s acquittal was overruled on Wednesday.
As one of the first Khmer Rouge commanders to defect, Chhouk Rin was an example for other rebels to lay down their weapons, said his friend Chan Sokhan.
Arresting a military minion like Chhouk Rin was also a hollow gesture when more senior Khmer Rouge leaders, responsible for far more heinous crimes were still free, locals said.
“They should punish the hammer not the nail,” Chan Sokhan said.
As his youngest son milled around in a soccer outfit emblazoned with the face of British soccer ace David Beckham, Chhouk Rin said he understood the anger of the deceased men’s families, but their deaths were just one chapter in Cambodia’s troubled history.
“I never hated foreigners…. I want to show my regret to the families,” Chhouk Rin said.
“So many millions of people were killed during the war…Now they just think about the three foreigners. They forget about the many millions who died,” he said.
“It’s been a hard and bitter life, and now I’m trying living happily with my family.”
