A Khmer Rouge prison chief who oversaw crimes of savagery a generation ago is told he will spend the next 19 years in jail: That’s the same sentence that many low-level drug dealers, women who shoot their husbands after a lifetime of abuse and political scapegoats receive.
Far from providing closure from the trauma of the “killing fields” regime, the sentence given to Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch, seen by many as too lenient, has become another occasion to scrutinize the shortcomings of the criminal justice system.
For decades, the rich and powerful have enjoyed near impunity, while those who have neither money to pay off corrupt police and judges, nor political or military ties, end up in jail, sometimes for years.
For many Cambodians, the word justice has little meaning. Many hoped the creation of a UN-backed tribunal — to try leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime — would serve as a model for judicial reform.
However, critics are quick to point out the process was flawed from the start, its problems mirroring many of the weaknesses in Cambodia’s rule of law.
Duch was convicted last month of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was the first major Khmer Rouge figure to face trial more than three decades after the regime’s brutal rule.
The government insisted prosecutors and judges included Cambodians, several of whom had been involved in some of the nation’s most controversial political trials.
Among the judges on the panel that sentenced Duch was Thou Mony, who acquitted Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s nephew of manslaughter charges several years ago. He also twice ruled against Bom Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun, widely seen as scapegoats in the 2004 murder of an opposition activist, Chea Vichea.
The broad daylight killing, which occurred in front of a Phnom Penh newsstand, and the investigation that followed sparked local and international outcry.
So did the trial. None of the prosecution witnesses appeared, providing only written testimonies that could not be challenged in court. Several of those present for the defense were rejected, including an alibi who put one of the suspects 60km from the scene.
“I have no faith in the Cambodian justice system. If you’re poor and powerless, you basically have no chance,” Sok Sam Oeun said. “I should know ... I got 20 years for a crime I didn’t commit.”
While Duch himself has no political power and little money, many Cambodians’ disappointment with what they see as a too lenient sentence has added to their frustrations with the country’s legal system.
Duch got 35 years for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but the number was whittled down to 19 after judges took into consideration time served and other factors.
Front page headlines after the first ruling was handed down against Duch, who oversaw the killings and executions of up to 16,000 people, pointed to the high level of disillusionment.
“Less than one day for every person killed!” the popular Rasmei Kampuchea daily screamed.
Another highlighted the much-higher 98 years given by local courts to Heng Pov, a former police chief in the capital. He was found guilty of extortion, kidnapping and murder — but only after a hugely public fallout with the government.
Meanwhile, it took a decade and US$100 million to get the UN-backed tribunal up and running, something analysts blame on foot-dragging by the government.
Hun Sen once served as a Khmer Rouge cadre and has expressed considerable irritation with the tribunal, especially when it suggested defendants beyond the regime’s leadership could be indicted, warning that could lead to civil war.
Rights groups say there is no evidence the UN tribunal, with all its flaws, has helped raise the standards of Cambodia’s own court system. Though there have been improvements in the last decade, with judges generally more knowledgeable about laws and procedures, political and financial influence over the courts are as strong as ever.
“Again and again, we deal with victims who have been further victimized by the judiciary to keep them silent or as a way to withdraw lawsuits against the well-connected people and companies,” said Naly Pilorge, director of the human rights group LICADHO.
In a classic case of victims turned into perpetrators, 11 villagers in Siem Reap Province have been detained for more than a year for allegedly shooting at security forces during a land dispute last year, she said. Video footage shows a joint force — including police, military police, border police and soldiers — opening fire on the farmers, injuring four.
In another case, Sman Esma El is serving a life sentence for “attempting to kill people” in a foiled plot on the British embassy in 2003 at the height of the US-led war on terror. The ruling was based on testimony of one moto taxi driver allegedly hired by an Islamic militant and still secret documents from the US.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
RSS