IT Sen
Pseudonym: 2-TCW-813
Cases: Case 002/02
Category: Witness
Background and role
It Sen was born in 1952 in Ampil, Peus, Krouch Chhmar, Kampong Cham province, into a Cham family, practising Islam.
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During the Khmer Rouge regime, he was evacuated from his village and detained at Trea Village Security Centre.
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He testified as a witness before the Trial Chamber in Case 002/02 on the treatment of the Cham during the Khmer Rouge period. He was the first witness in the trial segment to testify on the treatment of the Cham.
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Ampil village
In 1973, It Sen lived with his wife and two children in Ampil village.
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Li and Lah were the village chiefs.
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Ampil was adjacent to Preak Krouch and Peus villages.
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The majority of the population in Ampil were Cham people,
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who practice Islam and speak their own language, which is different from Khmer language, and have their own culture and traditional clothing.
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Before the Khmer Rouge period, most of the Cham lived in Kampong Cham province, along the Mekong river.
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Arrival of the Khmer Rouge
When the Khmer Rouge arrived at Ampil village in 1973, Islamic and Khmer schools were closed down.
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Upon Angkar’s orders, the village chief and the group chief took measures against practising Islam.
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Cham people were forced to speak Khmer instead of the Cham language.
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Cham women were forced to cut their hair short and were not allowed to wear headscarves.
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Village chiefs and security guards collected and burned Korans.
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Cham women were called to stay in the mosque and were assigned agricultural tasks.
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The Khmer Rouge also collected all kitchen wares and built communal halls were everyone was required to eat.
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Contrary to their religious practices, Cham people were forced to eat pork.
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Rebellion on Koh Phal
Koh Phal was an island in the Mekong River located two kilometres from Ampil village.
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In 1975, Cham villagers at Koh Phal rebelled against the increasing restrictions on practicing Islam imposed by the Khmer Rouge.
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The Khmer Rouge soldiers forbade the Ampil villagers to cross to Koh Phal to prevent them from helping each other.
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Khmer Rouge soldiers from the district were sent to curb the rebellion.
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It Sen saw boats arriving at Koh Phal and artillery.
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The villagers at Koh Phal were armed with only machetes, swords, or knife and stones, while the Khmer Rouge soldiers had machine guns and artillery.
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The fighting continued for a few days.
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It Sen learned from his brother-in-law, who was at Koh Phal at that time and managed to escape, that “[t]hose who resisted were smashed or shot dead and some of them had their throats cut. Most Muslim men were killed. Only Muslim women remained.”
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First evacuation to Sangkae village, Preaek Achi area
After the rebellion at Koh Phal in 1975, some Cham people were evacuated to Battambang province, some to Stueng Trang, and some to Kratie.
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It Sen and his family were transferred by boat to Sangkae in Stueng Trang, and from there, they were transferred to Kratie.
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Sangkae was close to Trea village in Krouch Chhmar district.
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It Sen and his family spent about 20 days in Sangkae and were transferred to Preaek Achi area, near Trea village.
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They spent three years there, until the Southwest Zone cadres took over control of the area around mid-1978.
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In mid-1978, the village chief, a Southwest Zone cadre, instructed It Sen and his family to return to Ampil.
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In Ampil, district chief Seng told It Sen and other people who arrived from Preaek Achi that Ampil was too crowded and requested them to relocate to Trea village, together with other Cham families.
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Second evacuation to Trea Village Security Centre
It Sen, together with members of about 30 of 40 Cham families from Ampil, traveled to Trea village by oxcart.
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When they were close to Trea village, they met other Cham people, who told them that Cham people were blindfolded and led to the river at Trea village.
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It Sen explained that he and other people in his group realised that they would probably be killed at Trea village, but it was too late to return and they had no other place to run to.
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When It Sen and his family arrived, Trea village was full of soldiers.
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There were also some 15 to 20 Cham families from Saoy village.
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The soldiers ordered the Cham people to leave their belongings in a mosque.
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The men were separated from the women and children.
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It Sen was also separated from his wife and his child.
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He never saw them again and assumed they were killed.
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It Sen and at least 40 other men were tied up, beaten, and asked repeatedly if they were Muslims.
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They were then placed in a traditional house on stilts, guarded by the Khmer Rouge soldiers.
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It Sen saw more Cham people detained in the houses nearby.
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The riverbank was about 50 meters away from the house where It Sen was detained.
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It Sen described what he saw through the cracks in the wall while detained in the house:
[P]eople with blindfold[s] were taken out of the houses, and led to the river. They then used a big rope to attach some 30 people together one after another, while the other end of the rope was attached to the back of a motor boat. And so when the boat got to the middle of the river, they released the rope with people attached to it into the river to drown those people.
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Dragging and drowning of people continued throughout the day.
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It Sen was terrified and thought that he would also drown.
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At night, It Sen untied the rope and escaped the house through a hole between the planks in the floor.
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The Khmer Rouge soldiers did not see him, since it was a dark night, and it was raining heavily.
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It Sen crawled to the riverbank and floated for several hours to the village on the other side, Preaek Achi.
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He stayed at his cousin’s house and later returned to Ampil.
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The Trial Chamber found It Sen “to be credible and [his] evidence to be generally reliable.”
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It relied on It Sen’s testimony in its findings on restriction on Cham religious and cultural practices,
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Koh Phal rebellion in September 1975,
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evacuation after the Koh Phal rebellion,
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movement of population phase two,
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and detention and killings of Cham people at Trea Village Security Centre.
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On appeal, Khieu Samphan argued that It Sen’s evidence about the killings at Trea village was of low probative value because it was uncorroborated.
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The Supreme Court Chamber found that the Trial Chamber was reasonable in relying on It Sen’s testimony, that the Trial Chamber based its findings on the totality of the evidence, and that there was general consistency in all the evidence considered to support the Trial Chamber’s findings.
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