The health of Ta Mok, the highest-ranking Khmer Rouge official in custody, will be monitored by a five-man government committee charged with keeping him healthy until his trial.
“This committee is to care for Ta Mok’s health” and make sure he suffers no life-threatening complications, said Kao Try, director of Ket Melea Military Hospital and the committee’s deputy chairman.
The other members include Heng Taikry, director of Calmette Hospital, who also chairs the committee; Mol Roeup, military adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen; Sao Sokha, military police commander and Sao Sok, military court prosecutor.
Ta Mok’s lawyer, Benson Samay, has said his client is ill, is losing his mind and might die in prison.
But in January, when the 75-year-old Ta Mok was examined by independent doctors, he was diagnosed as having high blood pressure and was treated. “He is both mentally and physically fine,” his regular doctor, Tuot Nara, said at the time.
Kao Try says Ta Mok’s only health problems are high blood pressure and minor lung damage. “His health is no problem, but he is old” and possibly susceptible to disease, he said.
Kao Try said the committee was formed to reassure the international community that Ta Mok is receiving good care.
Ta Mok, who lost a leg to a land mine, never surrendered or defected to the government during the mid-1990s and has been held at the Military Court prison since his capture in March 1999.
