Mr. CHIN Saroeun
CHIN Saroeun was born in January 1959. He was a monk from 1972-75.
He explained to the Trial Chamber that on 17 April 1975 he and all the other monks in his region were defrocked because the Khmer Rouge told him there would be no more monks in the new regime. This was upsetting for him, because he loved Buddhism and had intended to be a monk for the rest of his life. The Khmer Rouge moved him to be trained in Kratie for three months, then transferred him to a mobile unit n Mondulkiri in ’75. The witness said that when he was a soldier, he was in charge of preventing Vietnamese prisoners from escaping. During testimony, he also discussed the vehicle with license plate number 502. He said this was used to take people away when they committed an offense. Everyone dreaded this vehicle and it would often drive straight into people’s homes. The chief of the district was accused of hiding Vietnamese minority people.
Mr. Chin told the Trial Chamber that after he left Mondulkiri people from his old division were sent to PP to be killed but he doesn’t know why. He was married in 1977 on request from his commander, who liked him and asked whether he knew his would-be wife. He did, but she and he didn’t know they’d be married until the day. Mr. Chin said the manual work they had to do sometimes killed people within 10 days of arriving there. His section was autonomous and reported straight to Phnom Penh.
- Witness acronym :
2-TCW-1028
- Age at the time of testimony :
- Appeared as :
- Cases : Case 002, Case 002/02,
- Date(s) of testimony :