PHAOK Khan - ECCC

Background and Role

Phaok Khan was a civil party applicant. His application was based on of the disappearance and deaths of his wife and cousin, and of his own arrest and detention at S-21.¹ Phaok joined the Khmer Rouge as a soldier in Battalion 308 before 1975.² He participated in the liberation of Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975 and “cleansing the city and the evacuation of people from Phnom Penh”.³

Arrest and Rescue

Phaok was arrested in Tuol Kork in 1978, blindfolded, and transferred to a detention centre which he believed was S-21.⁴ There he was interrogated and tortured twice.⁵ During his detention, he was put in a cell with another detainee, Yim Yav, for three days but they could not talk to each other.⁶ He was later placed in an individual cell for one week.⁷ After three to four months of detention, on 6 January 1979, he was taken away to a killing field which he believed was Choeung Ek.⁸ When taken near a pit to be killed, he avoided a blow aimed at his neck and was instead hit in his ribs when he fell unconscious into the pit.⁹ After he regained consciousness, he crawled on top of the corpses and fell unconscious again because of the bad smell.¹⁰ He was later able to leave the pit, arrive at a banana plantation where he tried to chew the trunk of a banana tree, reach a river, and let himself be carried on a wooden plank to the Chroy Changvar bridge where he was rescued by soldiers.¹¹

Civil Party Application

In the Tuol Sleng archives, Phaok was able to find documents of Chhoeung Phoam alias Tin Neth, who he claimed to be his cousin.¹² However, he was unable to find supporting documents to show that his cousin was detained, tortured, and interrogated at S-21.¹³ He also admitted that during a group visit to the Tuol Sleng Museum in 2008, he was unable to recognise the location as the place where he was detained.¹⁴ The Trial Chamber rejected Phaok’s civil party application,¹⁵ reasoning that he was neither photographed nor compelled to provide a biography, which were standard S-21 procedures, and that his account of his escape from the place of execution and the geographical indicia he provided was inconsistent with Choeung Ek.¹⁶ It also considered that Phaok was also unable to find supporting documents in relation to his wife, Pin Lin alias Pin Leab, who he believed was sent to S-21 or S-24 after her arrest in early 1978 while one month pregnant.¹⁷ Phaok’s Co-Lawyers appealed the Trial Chamber’s decision on three grounds.¹⁸ First, the Co-Lawyers argued that Duch did not contest the application.¹⁹ Second, they argued that Phaok was admitted by the Co-Investigating Judges in Case 002. ²⁰ Third, they submitted photographs that Phaok claimed were photographs of his wife, uncle, and his uncle’s wife as evidence, which he was only able to identify after visiting S-21.²¹ The Supreme Court Chamber rejected the Co-Lawyers’ first ground, finding that it is unfair to use Duch’s silence to make an adverse finding against him.²² Concerning the second ground, the Supreme Court Chamber considered that the fact that the appellant was admitted in Case 002 by the Co-Investigating Judges (with a lower standard of proof) is not conclusive for admissibility at the conclusion of Case 001.²³ However, it granted the appeal on the third ground, reasoning that while these photographs did not have names attached, it had no reason to doubt such attestation.²⁴

Videos

Testimony
Date	Written record of proceedings	Transcript number
7 July 2009	E1/44	E1/44.1
8 July 2009	E1/45	E1/45.1

Relevant documents
Document title Khmer	Document title English	Document title French	Document D number	Document E3 number
ឧបសម្ព័ន្ធ៣៖ ប្រវត្តិរូបរបស់ ភោគ សាខុន	Annex 3: Biography of Phok Sakhon		N/A	E5/7/1.3