A former teacher of the school, who almost ruled for the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. The top torturer to monitor the deaths of 15,000 people died on Wednesday at the age of 77.
King Guek Eav, better known by his
nickname Dutch, served as the head of the infamous Tolstoy Prison and was later
transferred’ to the "Killing Fields" government by a UN-backed war
crimes tribunal. He was convicted’ of crimes against humanity for his role.
Born in 1942, Khmer Rouge, a former math
teacher, became one of the top interrogators when the Maoist ultra-Maoist
government was in power from 1975-1979.
He monitored the violence against
thousands of men, women and children at a nearby high school, which turned him
into a concentration camp, extracting false confessions from victims and
sending them to their deaths on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh.
After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, he
retained his position within the communist movement as he fought the
Vietnam-backed army.
The jailer converted to Christianity in
his later years, and was working for a relief agency in western Cambodia under
a false name at the time of his arrest in 1999, when many had long held this
view. That he was already dead.
The Dutchman was the first member of the
Khmer Rouge to face trial before a war crimes tribunal in Cambodia and was
sentenced’ in 2012 to life in prison.
Yuk Chang, director of the Cambodian
Documentation Center, which conducts research on the Khmer Rouge government,
said his death was a "reminder that justice is a long and difficult
process."
"It may give some relief to the
living, and the fallen may now find peace," Yuk told AFP.
- Milestone of Justice -
Deutsche Welle's testimony at the tribunal
serves as a major milestone for the millions of Cambodians who suffered under
the brutal government, which claimed up to 2 million lives in a short span of
four years.
He maintained a large archive of
photographs, confessions and other documents with which UN prosecutors traced
the last horrific months of the lives of thousands of prisoners.
It revealed these aspects of the
government's covert operations - such as Paranoia's repeated cleansing of the
leadership - to show that its enemies were in its ranks.
He said during the trial that the Dutch
became a cadre in 1970 to "change society, oppose the government, oppose
violence" and helped oversee a series of jungle prisons.
After the government came to power in
1975, he was appointed head of the Toll Sling, which the Khmer Rouge calls S21.
He said they could be easily included
because they were "like a blank piece of paper."
When he apologized for the crimes
committed in prison, he later apologized to the survivors, disappointing them
that he was not a senior member of the high-ranking Khmer Rouge. ۔
"I respectfully and strictly obeyed
orders," the Dutch said in a final public statement in court.
Dutch had been in and out of the hospital
for years and had severe respiratory problems towards the end of his life.
A tribunal spokesman, Neth Pheaktra, told
AFP he had been re-admitted for treatment this week and died’ shortly after
midnight on Wednesday.
The work of the court facing the Dutch has
been tainted’ by its limited scope and the age of its defendants. Only the
tribunal has convicted two others.
One of them, "Brother Number
Two" Naveen Chi - considered the chief ideologue and architect of the
murderous government - died last year at the age of 93.
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