NORNG Chanphal

Background

Norng Chanphal, born in 1970,¹ lived with his parents in a cooperative in Kampong Speu.² His father, a Khmer Rouge cadre, worked at the railway timber workshop, and his mother was a farmer.³ He has seven siblings, including his youngest brother Norng Chanly, alias A Let.⁴ Norng Chanphal testified that after his father received a letter requesting him to work in Phnom Penh,⁵ he, his mother, and his younger brother A Let, were taken to Phnom Penh,⁶ along with two other women and their children by jeep.⁷

S-21 Prisoner

Norng Chanphal testified that he was terrified when he saw his mother being mistreated upon their arrival to Phnom Penh.⁸ They were first brought to a room where his mother was photographed with a number assigned to it.⁹ He saw his mother being pushed, shouted at, threatened, pushed to the floor and hit.¹⁰ They were then placed in a common room together with the other two women and their children where they spent a night.¹¹ In the morning he and the other children were separated from their parents and put in the workshop behind the building where the mothers were detained.¹²

Norng Chanphal saw his mother only one more time as she looked at him through the window bars of her detention cell.¹³ He and his brother, along with three other children, were placed in care of an elder woman, slept at the rear of the workshop, and were fed gruel two times a day.¹⁴

Norng Chanphal testified that he could not recall how long he stayed there or what the other children did.¹⁵ Recalling the day the Khmer Rouge forces left S-21, he noticed that it was unusual as there seemed to be a rush with the back entrance being wide open as shelling could be heard and soldiers in Vietnamese uniform could be seen.¹⁶

The soldiers who arrived first to S-21 fed the children some cooked rice and duck and left hastily.¹⁷ The next morning Norng Chanphal and the other children were taken to the hospital by the Vietnamese army.¹⁸ One of the children died the night before they were taken away from S-21, while the other children were too weak to walk.¹⁹

On 6 January 1979, the day before he was rescued from S-21, Norng Chanphal recalled hiding behind a pile of clothes and broken furniture so that his mother would be able to find him.²⁰

Norng Chanphal also testified about what he saw when he tried to search for his mother in the buildings:

Q. Did you see people die while you were leaving -- I mean, the dead body?

A. When the woman asked me to leave and then I did not go with her, then she left, then I saw the open gate, then I went to climb upstairs to the second floor to see the open door, but I could not find my mother. Then I ran to the next building and I saw people lying inside the room and maybe they died, although they were not swollen. I could see them lying on the beds and there were blood and I was scared and then I kept running and crying for mother, searching for mother. I was scared when I saw a person who was chained to the bed lying there.²¹

Norng Chanphal identified his father’s S-21 biography.²²

The Trial Chamber relied on Norng Chanphal’s testimony, among other evidence, in its findings regarding the mass executions upon the fall of Phnom Penh in 1979²³ and the work of the Documentation Unit at S-21.²⁴ The Trial Chamber also referred to Norng Chanphal’s testimony in finding that the S-21 list of prisoners was incomplete.²⁵

The Trial Chamber generally referenced Norng Chanphal’s testimony in its entirety in its analysis of article 5 of the ECCC law and its findings that the crimes committed at S-21 were directed against any civilian population.²⁶

Duch raised the issue that there is no evidence that Norng Chanphal and his mother were at S-21 and that perhaps the events described by Norng Chanphal occurred at some other security center.²⁷ Initially, Duch also contested that Norng Chanphal’s father died at S-21, however, after S-21 records of the witness’s father were presented, Duch confirmed his acknowledgement that the witness’s father died at S-21.²⁸

Rejected Civil Party Application

Initially Norng Chanphal applied to become a civil party and seek justice for his parents, however his application was rejected on the ground that he missed the deadline for application.²⁹

Videos

Testimony
Date	Written record of proceedings	Transcript number
2 July 2009	E1/42	E1/42.1

Relevant documents
Document title Khmer	Document title English	Document title French	Document D number	Document E3 number
NONE	NONE	NONE