Witness weeps while recounting ordeal

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, June 30 (UPI) -- Tears ran down the face of a 63-year-old man as he testified in front of an international tribunal deciding the fate of one of Cambodia's most notorious Khmer Rouge prison heads.

Vann Nath is believed to be one of only seven survivors of the Tuol Sleng prison in the capital during the brutal Khmer Rouge years from 1975 until it was toppled by a Vietnamese-led incursion in 1979.

Between 15,000 and 17,000 prisoners -- including women and children -- were tortured, murdered and starved to death while under the supervision of the prison governor called Duch, now 66 and on trial. He faces life in prison for war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and murder. But the tribunal has no power to impose the death penalty.

Vann Nath, 63, openly wept as he told the U.N.-backed tribunal how he ate insects and food left beside the bodies of recently dead fellow prisoners "because we were like animals." He and fellow prisoners did so when not seen to avoid beatings by the guards.

Food was only teaspoons of rice meal a couple times a day, so starvation was driving him to think the unthinkable, he recounted. "I even thought eating human flesh would be a good meal."

He was kept alive, he told the tribunal, because the prison authorities knew he had skill as a portrait painter. He later painted a portrait of a man he later understood was Pol Pot, the feared and hated leader of the Khmer Rouge.

Up to 2 million people are thought to have died through Pot's forced agrarian policy of exiling people from cities to work in the countryside. Pot died in 1998 while being held prisoner by a faction of the Khmer Rouge clandestinely operating in the jungle regions on the Cambodia-Thailand border.

Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, sat slumped in his chair during Vann Nath's testimony. Duch has already confessed to his responsibility of what went on in the S-21 Prison and has asked for forgiveness from the families of those who were killed.

But Duch also said he was not high up in the political party and had no choice but to work at the prison as governor.

The importance of Nath's testimony is underlined by the fact that of the seven survivors only three are known to be alive. Nath said he wanted justice for those who died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

The tribunal will hear testimony from two more survivors later this week. Four other Khmer Rouge leaders await trial likely in 2010.

The tribunal was set up in 2006 and consists of five Cambodian and four international judges. Earlier this month the Canadian judge, Robert Petit, announced he would be leaving in September for personal reasons and return to a government job in the Canadian capital Ottawa.

Controversy has surrounded the tribunal from time to time over accusations of mismanagement and Cambodian government interference. Petit has said that the tribunal is underfunded.