RIEL Son - ECCC

Background and role

Riel Son was born in Tram Kak District, called District 105 under the Democratic Kampuchea regime, located in Sector 13 of the Southwest Zone.¹ He worked in Trapeang Thum North Commune, Tram Kak District prior to the regime.² From late 1976 until the end of the Democratic Kampuchea regime, he was the Deputy Chief of the Tram Kak district hospital.³ He testified before the Trial Chamber in Case 002/02 concerning the Tram Kak Cooperatives and Kraing Ta Chan Security Centre.

Tram Kak District secretaries

According to Riel Son, the primary location of the Tram Kak District Office was at Angk Roka, where the District Committee was also based.⁴ He identified many people as successive district secretaries including Yeay Khom (Ta Mok’s daughter),⁵ Pech Chim, and Neang Ouch alias Ta San (Ta Mok’s younger brother-in-law) as the last district secretary under the regime.

Tram Kak district hospital and other medical facilities

Riel Son was assigned to be a medic in the district hospital, which was located at Trapeang Kol pagoda in Trapeang Thum Cheung commune in Tram Kak District.⁷ The reason for his nomination was that he “knew how to administer injection and how to give prescription for people to use medicine such as for cold and chill”.⁸ He claimed that he was just a “progressive person” unlike the hospital chiefs, who were all members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea.⁹ Most of them were female, and had no medical knowledge, and did not even know how to read.¹⁰ Once assigned, Riel Son received some short training, and in return, he convened sessions for staff at the district hospital, who were all base people.¹¹ Most of the female staff were aged between 13 to 20 and did not know how to read.¹² Riel Son supervised 12 commune medical facilities which had approximately five to seven medics each; commune chiefs had oversight over the facilities in their respective communes.¹³ The hospital at the sector level was headed by a person who had been a doctor before April 1975 and there were more medicines and better treatment methods there.¹⁴ There were different procedures for admission to the commune, district, and sector hospitals: (i) for the commune hospital, patients had to be sent by their respective cooperative chief or village chief; (ii) for the district hospital, they had to be referred by the commune hospital;¹⁵ and (iii) for the sector hospital, they had to be referred by the district hospital.¹⁶ According to Riel Son, most admissions to the hospital were caused by diarrhoea, “swollen bodies”, and malaria.¹⁷ Both traditional medicines and few types of modern medicines – including Calcium, B1, and B12 – were available and used at the hospital.¹⁸ He explained that while some patients were fully treated by medicine or by receiving enough “cooked rice”, some others who had severe condition and could not be treated they would be referred to the sector hospital.¹⁹ The Trial Chamber extensively relied on Riel Son’s testimony regarding the conditions in which the patients were treated, the general organisation and conditions of the hospital.²⁰ The Trial Chamber also relied on his testimony in finding that people were dying of malnutrition, lack of rudimentary medical care, and overwork.²¹

Deaths in the hospital

On appeal, Khieu Samphan claimed that the Trial Chamber erred in relying exclusively on Riel Son’s testimony in finding that deaths in the hospital towards the later part of the regime was due to lack of rudimentary medical care. According to Khieu Samphan, Riel Son actually attributed the real cause of deaths to the lack of food. The Supreme Court Chamber considered that although Riel Son did not state that deaths were due to lack of rudimentary medical care, the Trial Chamber was not unreasonable in making this finding because Riel Son clearly stated that deaths occurred in the hospitals and that the medical care was rudimentary.

Identifications of enemies at the hospital

Riel Son attended monthly meetings with the District Committee in order to deliver oral reports on the District Hospital regarding the patients, whereas the Hospital Chief reported on the Party activities or work.²⁵ He recalled that there was “a general instruction for all, not only the hospital” to identify the enemies.²⁶ The Trial Chamber relied on Riel Son’s testimony in finding that he was ordered by the District Committee to identify patients admitted at the hospital.²⁷ It considered that his testimony was consistent with some evidence from Kraing Ta Chan recording the Hospital staff’s reports on patients.²⁸

Chinese delegation’s visit to Tram Kak District

In 1977, a Chinese delegation visited Leay Bour Commune. To prepare for the visit, the District Secretary instructed Riel Son to organise the commune clinic to be in a proper manner.²⁹

Kraing Ta Chan Security Centre

Riel Son visited Kraing Ta Chan Security Centre once during the Khmer Rouge regime for about half an hour in order to spray insecticide on the District Secretary’s instructions.³⁰ At that time, An was the prison chief.³¹ During the visit, Riel Son did not see any interrogation or torture site and was prohibited from entering in some places.³² In the compound he saw three big buildings and two small ones,³³ about more than 100 prisoners in the longest building lying directly on the ground,³⁴ and loudspeakers hanging on the tree.³⁵ He never received any request for medicine or other products from that centre.³⁶

Treatment of target groups

More than 100 monks were evacuated of from Phnom Penh and elsewhere to the district, and were gathered in Angk Roka pagoda and defrocked. At that time, he came to visit them, in particular, his former Buddhist teacher who was evacuated from Phnom Penh, in order to offer them some foods and alms.³⁷ Khmer Rouge cadres demolished sculptures, removed small Buddha statues, and threw them into water.³⁸ During a meeting presided over by Pech Chim, it was discussed that Khmer Republic officials and soldiers (from the adjutant up for in army and from the first deputy chief up for in the administration) and Khmer Krom were to be killed.³⁹ After that, some of his relatives who were in that target group were taken away and disappeared.⁴⁰ However, it was not clear as to the date of the meeting whether it took place in the aftermath of the liberation of 1975 or after late 1976.⁴¹ During meetings, commune and village chiefs were instructed by the district committee to prepare lists of the Khmer Krom people living in each commune to be sent to the upper echelon, and those who just arrived in the district without children would be identified as “yuon” spies or KGB agents.⁴² Vietnamese disappeared at night time or were called out and taken away during working time in the field or at canal worksites.⁴³ The Trial Chamber relied extensively on Riel Son’s testimony in finding that: (i) there was evidence demonstrating a consistent and widespread pattern of the forcible defrocking of monks in the aftermath of 17 April 1975, followed by their expulsion from pagodas throughout the country;⁴⁴ (ii) the meeting presided over by Pech Chim took place in 1976 or later, where there was a plan to kill former members of the Lon Nol regime given to commune and village representatives;⁴⁵ and (iii) that plan was to change the previous instructions issued after May 1975 not to harm Lon Nol soldiers and officials;⁴⁶ (iv) and that Vietnamese and Khmer Krom in the district vanished without people knowing their fate.⁴⁷ The Trial Chamber considered that Riel Son’s testimony reflects the general tenor of the instructions related to the situation of Vietnamese and Khmer Krom during the meeting with the District Committee.⁴⁸

Forced marriage

The Hospital staff’s marriages arranged under the regime were decided by the district secretary and organized at the district office.⁴⁹ The individuals anticipated and knew each other before the marriage; no one was forced to marry somebody they did not wish to marry.⁵⁰ The Trial Chamber relied on Riel Son’s testimony (among other evidence) in finding that the District Committee was the authority to approve and arrange the marriages for those at the district level⁵¹ and the ceremonies would be conducted at various places including district offices.⁵² While Riel Son and other cadres claimed the existence of individual consent to the marriages, the Trial Chamber found that the consent given in the general climate of fear may not have been genuine.⁵³ It considered that Riel Son and the other cadres had a tendency to minimize their own responsibility.⁵⁴ On appeal, Khieu Samphan submitted that the Trial Chamber erred in rejecting the cadres’ evidence that was corroborated by non-cadres’ and official CPK documents on the principle of the individuals consent to the marriage.⁵⁵ The Supreme Court Chamber found that the Trial Chamber acted reasonably, considering that this set of evidence was considered by the Trial Chamber before reaching reasonable conclusions.⁵⁶

Videos

Testimony
Date	Written record of proceedings	Transcript number
16/03/2015	E1/277	E1/277.1
17/03/2015	E1/278	E1/278.1
18/03/2015	E1/279	E1/279.1
19/03/2015	E1/280	E1/280.1

Relevant documents
Document title Khmer	Document title English	Document title French	Document D number	Document E3 number
បទសម្ភាសន៍របស់មជ្ឈមណ្ឌល ឯកសារកម្ពុជាជាមួយលោក រៀល សន ថ្ងៃទី២២ ខែឧសភា ឆ្នាំ២០១១	DC-Cam interview with RIEL Sorn on 22nd May 2011	Entretien de RIEL Sorn par DC-Cam le 22 mai 2011	D313/1.2.409	E3/5859
កំណត់ហេតុនៃការស្តាប់ចម្លើយ សាក្សី រៀល សន	Written Record of Interview of RIEL San	Procès-verbal de l’audition de RIEL San	N/A	E3/5511