BOU Meng - ECCC

Background

Bou Meng testified as a civil party in case 001 regarding Kaing Guek Eav’s (alias Duch) involvement at S-21 Security Office (also known as Tuol Sleng Prison), and how he was tortured there.¹ The Trial Chamber’s findings in Case 001 based on Bou’s testimony were also referenced in Case 002/02.²

Before and during Bou’s detention in S-21 Security Office

Before 17 April 17 1975 Bou went into maquis jungle to liberate the country.³ After the 17 April, Angkar ordered him to draw and sketch for workshop participants at Ruessei Keo Technical School.⁴ Two or three months later, when the Southwest Group took control of the school, he was transferred to Ta Lei Co-operative where Angkar forced him to dig canals, grow vegetables, and make ploughs, wooden tools, and rakes.⁵ In 1977, he and his ex-wife were brought to S-21 under the pretext that he was to teach children at the School of Fine Arts.⁶ When Bou and his ex-wife arrived at S-21, they were handcuffed and blindfolded.⁷ After they were photographed, ⁸ they were detained in separate buildings.⁹ Bou was put in a common detention cell¹⁰ with 20 to 40 detainees,¹¹ where all were shackled by the ankles and attached to a long metal bar.¹² Khmer and foreign detainees ate twice a day the same gruel with almost no rice grain.¹³ Hungry, Bou would wish for a lizard to drop from the ceiling so he could eat it.¹⁴ Medical treatment was limited.¹⁵ Once a week detainees would ask bathe, which amounted to detainees being sprayed standing naked in their cells by the guards who were standing outside,¹⁶ often mocking them for their physical appearance.¹⁷ They would dry their shorts on the floor.¹⁸ Detainees defecated and urinated in ammunitions box and plastic jugs.¹⁹ Twice a day, Bou was brought into an interrogation room handcuffed and blindfolded,²⁰ and after his shackles and blindfolds were removed, interrogated on whether he was involved with the CIA and KGB.²¹ With his face to the ground, he was beaten until the interrogators felt he had had enough,²² occasionally electrocuted until he became unconscious.²³ During the interrogation processes, Bou witnessed some alive detainees carried and tied like pigs and heard the truck waiting outside to load them.²⁴ He never saw them returning.²⁵ When he was sleeping in Building C on the third floor in the common room, he heard screaming from S-21.²⁶ In late 1977 or early 1978, Bou was released from the detention cells and unshackled, but kept in Building E of S-21, guarded and locked inside.²⁷ He painted pictures there,²⁸and was once ordered by Duch to adjust a painting of Pol Pot.²⁹ Duch threaten to turn him into human fertilizer if his painting of Pol Pot was not good.³⁰ At one point of time, Duch asked him and Im Chan to beat each other.³¹ Bou received adequate food after his release, but remained in fear.³² Trial Chamber relied on Bou’s testimony in finding murder and extermination,³³ enslavement,³⁴ imprisonment,³⁵ torture³⁶ and other inhumane acts,³⁷ which are parts of crimes against humanity committed in S-21.³⁸

Videos

Testimony
Date	Written record of proceedings	Transcript number
01 July 2009	E1/41	E1/41.1

Relevant documents
Document title Khmer	Document title English	Document title French	Document D number	Document E3 number
កំណត់ហេតុនៃការស្តាប់ចម្លើយសាក្សី ប៊ូ ម៉េង	Written Record of Interview of BOU Meng	Procès-verbal de l’entretien de BOU Meng	D2-1	E3/389