Nuon Chea Ordered Families’ Arrests, Duch Says

S-21 prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his revolutionary alias Duch, told the Khmer Rouge tribunal on Wednesday that Nuon Chea ordered the arrests of the wives and children of purged officials because the regime feared potential revenge attacks.

Duch, who is serving a life sentence at the Kandal Provincial Prison after being convicted in 2010 of crimes against humanity, is testifying in the current phase of Case 002—in which Pol Pot’s second-in-command Nuon Chea and head of state Khieu Samphan are on trial for crimes including genocide.

Duch testifies at the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Phnom Penh on Wednesday. (ECCC)
Duch testifies at the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Phnom Penh on Wednesday. (ECCC)

Under questioning by assistant prosecutor Dale Lysak, the former prison chief said spouses and children of those sent to S-21—including high-ranking officials—also met a deadly fate.

“The spouses and children of the prisoners were treated in the same way as the prisoners—that means they would be smashed,” Duch said, using the regime’s preferred term for executions.

“Even Vorn Vet, who was a senior minister in the regime—when brother Vorn was arrested, his spouse was also arrested,” he said, adding that the wife of the minister’s assistant, Cheng Orn, was also sent to S-21 after her husband was detained.

Asked by the prosecutor who had ordered the arrests, Duch said the command came from Nuon Chea.

“Who was the superior who instructed you to arrest these wives?” Mr. Lysak asked.

“At that time it was brother Nuon who gave me the direct instruction. Pon and Lin were the ones who escorted me to arrest them based on the upper-level instruction,” Duch replied.

Duch said he was unsure on the exact fate of the children of Vorn Vet, although he concluded they were most likely “smashed since there was no gain in keeping them for the purpose of interrogation.”

“Based on the procedure at that time, it was I that gave the instruction based on the order from brother Nuon, and there were only four children left behind when the Vietnamese came,” he said, referring to the invasion that toppled the Khmer Rouge in January 1979.

Duch recalled conversations with Khmer Rouge Defense Minister Son Sen—who was killed along with numerous family members on the orders of Pol Pot from his Anlong Veng jungle hideout in 1997—in which he explained that wiping out families was necessary to avoid revenge attacks.

“Son Sen’s instruction was treated as the instruction from the party. Every comrade of the party had to follow the instruction from the party,” Duch said.

“As for the thinking of the communist party, at the time they used one phrase that meant revenge: An eye for an eye,” he added.

“There was never any instruction not to kill children, not to kill pregnant women, not to kill women.”

Witnessing once-powerful officials being murdered along with their families led Duch to become a loyal operator within the regime, he claimed.

“As to the instruction to smash everyone at S-21, I became so desperate, so fatigued that I could not do anything until the day the Vietnamese arrived,” Duch said.

“What I did at the time is that I tried to understand the lines of the party and that I should adhere to the lines so that I would not disappear, because if I disappeared it means the rest of the family members including my wife and children and my parents would disappear,” he said.

“I was the core person in my family and I was the one who knew much more about the revolution.”

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