This is part three. You can read part one here.
By the end of 1994, the Cambodian army had routed the Khmer Rouge that had occupied the Phnom Voar area, bringing thirty years of Khmer Rouge control in southern Cambodia to an end. But the families of David Wilson, Mark Slater, and Jean-Michel Braquet still were looking for justice. Their sons’ murderers remained free, living openly in Cambodia.
Three of the Khmer Rouge commanders were assumed responsible for the train attack, kidnappings, and murders: Chhouk Rin, who led the regiment that attacked the train, had defected and now served as a colonel in the Cambodian army. Nuon Paet, the military and political commander of the Phnom Voar region, had fled into hiding during the final assault on his stronghold. Most remarkably, Sam Bith, who had commanded the entire Southwest region, had not only defected in 1996 with an offer of amnesty but had been appointed as a major general in the Cambodian Army and an advisor to the Defence Ministry.
The chance of anyone being brought to trial for their crimes seemed unlikely.
However, In 1997, The United Nations and Cambodia began the process of moving forward with trials for the leaders of the Khmer Rouge. Cambodia was under pressure to prove that their judicial system was able to conduct a fair and impartial trial, even for high-ranking and powerful people. If Cambodia failed to prosecute those responsible for the murders of the backpackers, it would reflect poorly on the country’s judicial system and its ability to be impartial in the upcoming Khmer Rouge war crimes trials.
Under the increasing political pressure, arrests began.
It was clear that Nuon Paet was living somewhere in Cambodia, despite rumors that he had been killed by his own bodyguard. In 1997, an anonymous journalist was listening in on the clandestine radio broadcasts of the Khmer Rouge when they overheard someone accidentally refer to Nuon Paet by name before quickly being reminded to use his pseudonym instead. Paet was in the town of Samlout. The journalist traveled to Samout and was able to photograph him. He turned the photo over to the authorities and Paet was promptly arrested.
After his defection, Chhouk Rin was rewarded with the rank of colonel in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces and appointed as the provincial military commander of Phnom Voar, the same region and people he had once ruled over as part of the Khmer Rouge.
Despite his past, he was respected by the locals who saw his betrayal of the Khmer Rouge as an act of bravery that led directly to peace in the area. Using his old patronage networks, he began working to improve the lives of the people who lived there. In the years after his defection, he gave away land, built roads, schools and four pagodas for the community.
The power and prestige that Rin held in his region afforded him immense protection. However, with increasing pressure from Western governments who began to threaten to cut the aid they were giving to Cambodia, the government decided to act.
On January 9, 2000, in order to coax Rin away from his power-base, he was invited by the National Military Police Chief and the Regional Military Commander of Kampot to attend a party at a hotel in the city. Once away from his supporters and “blissfully drunk”, he was surrounded by police, arrested and taken to the prison in Phnom Penh.
The people living in Phnom Voar were shocked. “I am still very worried about the future of the people living here,” said one, “very concerned about the village. We are all his people here, and there is no leader with his ability.” After Rin’s arrest, the many projects he had started to improve the impoverished area were abandoned.
Sam Bith posed what seemed like an insurmountable problem. Having defected and granted amnesty in 1996, he was now a high-ranking member of the Cambodian Army. If someone as powerful as Bith were to have his amnesty revoked, it would call into question every other offer of amnesty, a process that led to the delicate balance of peace in the country. As Bith’s lawyer would later state: “If such a charge against him were not dropped, other people who had defected from the Khmer Rouge would take up arms and go back to the jungle for fear that the court would press this charge against them also.”
In January 2000, the trial for Chhouk Rin began and, while Sam Bith had not yet been charged with a crime, he was called as a witness. When he refused to appear, a warrant was issued for Bith’s arrest. Once again, he failed to show up. The police explained to the judge that they had gone to his door and knocked, but no one answered. More warrants were issued but they had no effect.
It wasn’t until 2002 that international pressure caught up with him. Sam Bith was arrested in his luxurious home in Battambang on May 22nd.
All three would be tried individually, often being called as witnesses on each other. As justice threatened, the finger pointing began.
In his trial in 2000, Chhouk Rin, who had commanded the regiment that led the attack on the train, insisted he did not lead the attack. He claimed he had only taken the hostages to his superior, Nuon Paet. He continued to insinuate that Paet, not he, was in charge and that Paet had made decisions on his own. In fact, he claimed, Paet didn’t like him and wouldn’t trust him to make any decisions himself.
In a dramatic moment at the end of his trial, Chhouk Rin’s lawyer declared the trial irrelevant: Chhouk had defected and accepted amnesty before the execution took place, absolving him of any responsibility. No matter the evidence against him, he could not be charged. The judge agreed with the argument, and Rin was set free. Upon hearing the decision, Jean-Claude Braquet, the father of the French hostage who was attending the trial, shouted in court: “It’s a scandal!”
However the verdict was appealed in August of 2002. This time, both the British and Australian ambassadors attended the trial. Neither Chhouk Rin nor his lawyer showed up, both claiming they were too ill to travel. The one-day trial ended with the judge determining that Rin’s amnesty only applied to crimes committed before the government offered immunity, which had been months before the train attack. The judge found Chhouk Rin guilty of terrorism, murder, wrongful damage to property and illegal confinement. He was sentenced to life in prison. While Rin briefly went into hiding, taunting the authorities to capture him, he eventually submitted to the court for an appeal, which was denied, and he was taken to prison.
Nuon Paet, the political commander of Phnom Voar, stood trial in June of 1999. Paet had been holding the hostages, led the negotiations for the ransom and was suspected of ordering the execution. At his trial, however, Nuon accused Sam Bith, his superior, of ordering the train attack and the now deceased Vorn Vin, military commander of Phnom Voar, of killing the hostages on Sam Bith’s orders. He claimed he had done everything he could to make the hostages comfortable and it was the government that had offered him a ‘reward’ of $150,000 to release them rather than a ransom demand he had made. Sam Bith – who had not yet been charged with a crime, but was aware he would be charged soon – spoke as a witness and rebuked Paet’s claims, stating that, despite himself being the regional commander, Paet had made all the decisions. He went so far as to claim that Pol Pot himself had demoted him and, at the time of the hostage crisis, it was entirely Paet who was in charge of decision-making. The trial lasted eight hours, and it took the judge one hour to reach a guilty verdict. Paet was convicted of maintaining an illegal armed group, terrorism, illegal detention and robbery. He was also sentenced to life in prison.
Sam Bith’s would eventually face trial in 2002, and it was an important moment for Cambodia. The international community would now see if Cambodia’s judicial system was prepared for the upcoming trials for the Khmer Rouge leaders, such as Ieng Sary and Nuon Chea, both of whom were currently free and living public lives in Cambodia. Nuon Chea, who had been second in command of the Khmer Rouge, appeared at Bith’s trial as a witness. He defended Bith, claiming that Bith had been in a Thai hospital during the hostage crisis and could not have ordered the attack on the train or the killing of the hostages. However, the plaintiffs had contacted the Thai hospital and discovered that Sam Bith could not have been there. The hospital had not even opened in 1994.
On December 23, 2002, Judge Sok Sethamony read the verdict: Bith was guilty of all six charges. Judge Sok described Bith as “the real mastermind” behind the “vicious attacks committed against civilians.” Bith, now 70 years old, was also sentenced to life in prison.
Nuon Chea, Pol Pot’s closest confidant and one of the chief architects of Cambodia’s genocide, walked out of court and went home.
The life sentences for those responsible for the murders of David, Mark, and Jean-Michel marked the end of a long journey for justice by their families.
Four months after Sam Bith was sentenced to life in prison, two men on motorbikes with machine guns pulled alongside Judge Sok Sethamony’s car at an intersection in Phnom Penh and assassinated him.