Testimony video
FROGBLOG (Green Party) - post by Rob's media liaison Mark Servian
Rob Hamill testifies in Cambodia
Editorial: Rob Hamill's act of courage
Last updated 13:00 21/08/2009
It's a holiday snapshot that has become almost unbearably poignant. The photograph shows Kerry Hamill and his girlfriend Gail on his sloop Foxy Lady, moored off Phuket.
She is blonde and tanned, wearing a red bikini and standing near the bow. He is seated beside her, smiling broadly, bearded and wearing only shorts.
But in a trip on that same boat from Singapore to Bangkok in 1978, Kerry was to be blown off course and into Cambodian waters.
He was captured by the Khmer Rouge and taken to Tuol Sleng prison where he was tortured and killed. He was 27.
Thirty-one years later there is another image to add to the story that of Kerry's younger brother Rob in a Cambodian court giving testimony against the man accused of Kerry's execution.
And the accused, the man once known as Comrade Duch, seated in the same courtroom, this time the quarry.
He was in charge of Tuol Sleng where up to 17,000 people died at the hands of the bloody Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot.
Earlier this year Rob Hamill spoke to the Sunday Star Times of his need to forgive Duch, and his doubts that he could.
This week in his anguished testimony, he spoke of the way in which Duch had made himself less than human by what he had done.
Afterwards, Hamill said he wanted Duch imprisoned for life.
It may take him some time to forgive, and he may never be able to. Nor should anyone expect that of him.
But Hamill also said he didn't want Duch to die. He said "to want to kill another human being in retribution is to lower yourself to the level of the perpetrators of such heinous crimes".
This is, in a nutshell, the perfect answer to those who ever, anywhere, clamour for the death penalty, and it came from a person who has been deeply affected.
He appears to have been prompted by international coverage which he felt suggested he had indeed wanted the death penalty. Nothing in his testimony, however, says that is what he seeks.
This has been, to state the obvious, an extraordinarily difficult path for Hamill.
Three decades without resolution is a long time to wait. His determination to have his say, to confront his brother's torturer, has been characteristic of the man who has been an Olympian and has rowed across the Atlantic.
And he must have arrived at court not knowing what it would do to him emotionally.
A frequent difficulty for war crimes tribunals is establishing guilt, often in cases where the person on trial has avoided getting his own hands dirty. W
hat is unfolding in Cambodia appears a much more clearcut case. Assuming nothing unexpected happens Duch will, indeed, be imprisoned for life.
As he should be. But Cambodia does not have the death penalty so he will not be executed. And that is also as it should be.
As painful as it may be, the world's monsters should be locked away, not killed. Rob Hamill is absolutely right.
No wish to kill Duch: Hamill
New Zealander Rob Hamill is rejecting international headlines claiming he wishes to kill Kaing Guek Eav, the Khmer Rouge commander of the camp where his brother Kerry was murdered in 1978.
In his testimony to the UN-backed trial in Cambodia on Monday night, Mr Hamill said he had at times in the past 31 years imagined Eav, also known as Duch, suffering the same torture inflicted on so many people, but he has never wanted to action those thoughts.
Mr Hamill made it clear yesterday that he was never going to give in to those feelings, that the testimony itself was part of the healing process and he was pushing the emotional burden of the crimes back on to Duch.
"To want to kill another human being in retribution is to lower yourself to the level of the perpetrators of such heinous crimes."
Rob Hamill faces bother's killer
Hamilton man Rob Hamill faced his brother's alleged killer in a Cambodian court yesterday, but the former torture camp commandant claims he can not remember him.
Speaking to the Times from Phnom Penh shortly after testifying at the UN-backed trial of Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch and the head of the notorious S21 prison camp under Pol Pot's Khymer Rouge regime, Mr Hamill was not surprised by Duch's claim he did not recall Mr Hamill's older brother Kerry.
Kerry Hamill is believed to have been one of a handful of Westerners killed in the camp between 1975 and 1979. Kerry Hamill's yacht strayed into Cambodian waters in 1978, and while exact details of his death remain unknown, he is believed to have been tortured and executed while in S21.
Duch has testified he carried out orders from the regime's late leader Pol Pot, and Mr Hamill said Duch continued with that defence when he gave the equivalent of a victim impact statement in Phnom Penh's Extraordinary Chambers of Courts of Cambodia.
"His out is that he was just taking orders. It was either that, or be killed himself."
An emotionally drained Mr Hamill said there was sense of relief at having made his statement, aimed at court judges and detailing the huge impact of his brother's death on the Hamill family. He was able to make extensive eye contact with Duch, who sat just metres from him.
"It was very difficult, but he was certainly very attentive," Mr Hamill said. "I didn't look at him that much when I was making my statement - I was really looking up at the judges."
Reading his statement from notes, Mr Hamill said he was able to look directly at Duch when he made "a couple of pointed comments", while Mr Hamill's wife Rachel noticed Duch nervously fidgeting during particularly emotional parts of her husband's testimony.
"I had some emotional moments in there," Mr Hamill said of his appearance, which lasted just under an hour. "I was wiping away a few tears as I was telling the story."
"Whenever I said things that were emotionally charged about him (Duch), he was shuffling, pretty nervy..."
Mr Hamill believed Duch to be a "very sharp cookie, playing the court really well". Mr Hamill was able to directly question Duch, and asked him how long his brother was interned for.
"But the answer I got was that he (Duch) didn't know...which was a bit disappointing. He just didn't remember."
"The longer Kerry was in there, the worse it would've been," Mr Hamill said. "I know he was in there for at least two months."
"He said specifically he remembered the British man, but not my brother. It is disappointing, and I find it hard to believe...they were brought in at the same time, two Westerners."
Mr Hamill said although somewhat surreal, events at the trial had transpired much as he had expected. While he had not neccessarily gained any more information about his brother's death, Mr Hamill said he felt it was significant to represent the estimated 17,000 people killed in the camp, and their families.
Feedback from lawyers participating in the trial was that Mr Hamill's statement and questioning had made a strong impact on the judges.
"It was pretty powerful, being in there, and being part of that. I really felt I got the message across that I wanted to."
The trip to Cambodia for the trial will be an integral part of a documentary on Mr Hamill's search for justice for his brother, entitled Brother No 1.
NEW ZEALAND PRESS ASSOCIATIONRob Hamill confronts his brother's killer
Former NZ Olympic rower Rob Hamill, whose brother Kerry was tortured and slain by the Communist regime in Cambodia in 1978, wept as he confronted his brother's killer in court yesterday.
Hamill testified before the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Phnom Penh about the "massive and unquantifiable impact" the horrific death of his brother, 27, had on his family.
His parents were hugely affected by the appalling death.
"It changed them. They were never the same after it all happened," Rob Hamill told the court.
He was 14 when the awful news arrived.
"Death not by shipwreck, not by drowning or freak accident, but death by torture. Death by torture not over a few seconds or minutes or hours or days or weeks even," he said.
"They were terribly affected, as any parents would have been.
"The death of their first-born was the worst possible news for our family. He had not just been killed, he had been tortured."
Hamill, former Olympic and long-distance rower, said he had waited a long time to confront his brother's killer and relate the impact it had on his parents and siblings.
Hamill's mother is now dead and his father in a nursing home.
Hamill's wife Rachel and their two-year-old son were in the packed public gallery as he spoke for a full hour.
Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch as he is known, the man responsible for Kerry Hamill's death, listened impassively to the testimony as it was translated.
Dame Silvia was in court today to hear Hamill, who was accepted as a civil party.
Kerry Hamill was captured by the Khmer Rouge when the yacht on which he and friends were sailing strayed into Cambodian waters in August 1978.
Crewman Stuart Glass, a Canadian, was shot dead.
Thousands of Cambodians were killed at the prison.
"Smash" was the euphemism the Khmer Rouge used when ordering executions.
"At times, I have imagined you shackled, starved, whipped and clubbed, viciously.
"I have imagined your scrotum electrified, being forced to eat your own faeces, being nearly drowned and having your throat cut."
Duch sat behind him, expressionless.
"I have wanted that to be your experience, your reality. I have wanted you to suffer the way you made Kerry and so many others (suffer)," Hamill said.
About a dozen Westerners were among the estimated 16,000 people held at the prison before being killed.
The communist regime's radical policies while in power from 1975-79 caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people nationwide by execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition.
Asked by judges for his response, Duch (pronounced DOIK) repeated his earlier testimony that he received orders to kill the Westerners and burn their bodies.
He asked for forgiveness from the victims' families, acknowledging that they had suffered miserably.
He said he was not offended by being blamed.
"Even if the people threw stones at me and caused my death, I would not say anything," he told the court.
Duch is charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and murder, and could face a maximum penalty of life in prison. Cambodia has no death penalty.
His trial is expected to wrap up by the end of the year.
Led by Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the Khmer Rouge emptied Cambodia's cities in a bid to forge an agrarian utopia. This resulted in the deaths of up to two million people from starvation, overwork and torture.
ABC (Australia)
Brother can't forgive Killing Fields torturer
Posted
Updated
Rob Hamill represented New Zealand in rowing at the 1996 Olympics.
Two decades earlier his brother Kerry had been captured and killed by the Khmer Rouge when his yacht blew off course and into Cambodian waters.
Kerry, who was 28 at the time, was tortured and killed at Duch's Tuol Sleng prison.
On Tuesday Duch took the witness stand in his UN-backed trial to say sorry for his actions.
But Mr Hamill says he cannot ever be forgiven.
"It rings a little hollow. I mean I think Duch... must have been an ambitious man," he said.
"He didn't get to be commandant of that prison by accident and from what I heard, my understanding in the research that I have conducted, suggests that he was ruthless and clinical and cruel.
"I am going through a process where our family hasn't grieved properly. Personally I want to be able to forgive but I can't do that."
Wondering, hoping, waiting
Mr Hamill said that for a long time, he did not know what happened to his brother.
"My brother was sailing his yacht, taking a charter from Singapore up to Bangkok and got blown off course and ended up in Cambodian waters [and] got captured by a Khmer Rouge gunboat," he said.
"One of the guys on the boat - there were three of them - one was killed at that time and my brother and other charter, a guy from England, were taken back to Tuol Sleng.
"He was a regular letter writer to us when he was in his travels and his adventures and enjoying life and living it to its fullest, and they just stopped.
"We didn't know what happened for a long time. It was a good year wondering, hoping, before we found out what happened."
Mr Hamill says his family found out about Kerry's disappearance through the media.
"[I was] reading an article in a paper and it was on a radio station that particular day, that information had been sourced through Interpol," he said.
"All the prisoners - there were about a dozen or so Westerners that were captured during that three-year period - all were made to sign confessions that they were CIA agents and Interpol had some documents that were confirmed as my brother's handwriting."
Facing a killer
Although Mr Hamill feels he should be in Cambodia to witness the trial, he says circumstances will not not allow it to happen.
But he says he will travel to Cambodia to give a statement in coming months.
"I don't know when. It depends on the court process but certainly I hope to face Duch and make a statement on behalf of our family and the effect he had on our family in the hope that it aids in some way the sentencing process," he said.
"I am just going to tell the story and will describe the pain, the anxiety, the hope, the desperate hope.
"I think that was really, really hard on my parents in particular and they paid for it too with their health."
Mr Hamill is unsure what punishment Comrade Duch should receive.
"I don't know what to expect from this. If I could bring myself to believing Duch's words, that he can somehow see the error in his ways, there may spring a strange comfort," he said.
"I don't know ultimately, but it needs to be done."
Olympian wanted to kill Khmer Rouge torture boss
Posted
A New Zealand man whose brother was murdered by the Khmer Rouge has told a war crimes court in Cambodia that he felt like killing the boss of the torture prison where his brother died.
Olympic rowing great Rob Hamill's brother Kerry was one of three foreigners killed by the Khmer Rouge after their yacht was blown off course into Cambodian waters in 1978.
Mr Hamill slowly read out his victim impact statement as the prison's chief Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, stood trial in Phnom Penh.
He told Duch, who is accused of overseeing the torture and execution of 15,000 people, that he had ruined his family.
"At times I've imagined you shackled, starved, whipped and clubbed, viciously" he said.
Duch has admitted running the jail but insists he was not a big boss in the Khmer Rouge.
NEW ZEALAND HERALD (Associated Press (AP) story that ran internationally)
Brother of NZ victim rages at Khmer Rouge trial
7:09AM Tuesday Aug 18, 2009
By Sopheng Cheang
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - The brother of a New Zealander tortured and killed by the Khmer Rouge three decades ago has told the man who ordered the execution that he wished him a similarly gruesome fate.
Kerry Hamill was 28 when his yacht was blown off course into Cambodian waters in 1978, and he was captured by the radical communist regime. He and a shipmate, Briton John Dewhirst, were taken to Phnom Penh's S-21 prison and later killed.
Kerry's brother, Rob, wept as he testified at the trial of S-21's commander, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch - the first of five senior Khmer Rouge defendants to be tried by a U.N.-assisted tribunal and the only one to acknowledge responsibility for his actions.
"Duch, at times I have wanted to smash you, to use your words. The same way that you smashed so many others," Rob Hamill said, sitting in a suit and tie, his hands folded before him. "Smash" was the euphemism the Khmer Rouge used when ordering executions.
"At times, I have imagined you shackled, starved, whipped and clubbed, viciously. I have imagined your scrotum electrified, being forced to eat your own faeces, being nearly drowned and having your throat cut," said Hamill, referring to some of the horrors faced by prisoners.
Duch sat behind him, expressionless.
"I have wanted that to be your experience, your reality. I have wanted you to suffer the way you made Kerry and so many others (suffer)," Hamill said.
About a dozen Westerners were among the estimated 16,000 people held at the prison before being killed. The communist regime's radical policies while in power from 1975-79 caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people nationwide by execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition.
Rob Hamill, 45, a rower who represented New Zealand at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, said his family learned of his brother's death 16 months after he disappeared. Their parents read in a newspaper that he was executed after two months at S-21.
"Death not by shipwreck, not by drowning or freak accident, but death by torture. Death by torture not over a few seconds or minutes or hours or days or weeks even," said Hamill.
Asked by judges for his response, Duch (pronounced 'Doik') repeated his earlier testimony that he received orders to kill the Westerners and burn their bodies.
He asked for forgiveness from the victims' families, acknowledging that they had suffered miserably.
He said he was not offended by being blamed.
"Even if the people threw stones at me and caused my death, I would not say anything," he told the court.
Duch is charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and murder, and could face a maximum penalty of life in prison. Cambodia has no death penalty.
His trial is expected to wrap up by the end of the year.
- AP
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