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LEFEUVRE Martine 

Pseudonym: E2/85

Cases: Case 001

Category: Civil Party

Background and Role
Martine Lefeuvre was the French wife of Cambodian citizen Ouk Ket, an engineer and diplomat, and third secretary at the Cambodian Embassy in Senegal. 1 Ouk Ket was recalled by the Foreign Ministry of Cambodia in 1977 and ordered to return to Phnom Penh and his wife lost all contact with him after a few months. 2 Martine Lefeuvre gave evidence as Civil Party in Case 001. The Trial Chamber relied on it to find that only a very small number of the detainees at S-21 survived 3 , and her testimony reflected the “devasting consequences of the Accused’s crimes on these detainees’ families”. 4
Martine Lefeuvre’s efforts to find information about her husband Ouk Ket
Martine Lefeuvre made numerous brave efforts to find information about her husband Ouk Ket. Martine Lefeuvre first went to the Chinese Embassy in Paris, finding neither help nor information. Then she contacted Amnesty International, in 1978, as well as the International Red Cross, with no results. 5 In 1979 she received a letter from Mr Chan Youran, who was the Cambodian Ambassador in Senegal, and was head of a delegation which was present in Geneva, representing Cambodia. In his letter, he assured Ms Leufeuvre that Ouk Ket was fine. 6 This position was also confirmed by Mr. Chan Youran in person, after Martine Lefeuvre took a train and personally went to Geneva to see him. 7 Martine Lefeuvre was not satisfied with the information she had received and therefore decided to contact another person, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, whom she had previously met in Dakar, Senegal; he suggested contacting “Mr Chuon Prasith”, who represented Cambodia at the United Nations. 8 Martine Lefeuvre did not give up and she travelled to the Pavilion Bertel outside of Paris, where Prince Sihanouk was giving a conference on the state of Cambodia; she met a person named as “Mr Thiounn Prasith” and when she asked: “Where is my husband?”, he replied: “Don’t try to bargain your life for him”. 9 In December 1979, with the help of a French organization called “L’association de Femme Khmer”, she bought a ticket and flew to the refugee camps in Thailand, trying to find both her husband and other members of her Cambodian family. 10 In the refugee camps she was able to find some friends who had known her husband, such as Mr Hou Tong Hoeun, a man who had worked in the Tuol Sleng extermination camp also known as S21, and who found the name of Ouk Ket in the detainees list. 11 Martine Lefeuvre learned from Mr Hou Tong Hoeun that her husband Ouk Ket had been executed in Tuol Sleng on 9 December 1977. 12 Martine Lefeuvre decided to come back to France and raise their children – who were four-and-a-half years old and seven years old at the time – alone, and describes the difficulties and suffering she and the children experienced, derived from a permanent absence of the father and husband, without even a grave to cry on. 13 In July 1991, she returned to Cambodia in order to find her husband’s records in the Tuol Sleng archives. 14 She found a list of 301 people, which included her husband’s name, Ouk Ket, on line 43. The entry read: “Ouk Ket, 31 years old, Foreign Affairs, Ministry Base, Tung Toup (phonetic), Third Embassy Secretary”. 15 His date of arrival at Tuol Sleng was listed as June 15th, 1977, and on top of this paper was written a list of the 301 people who were exterminated on 9th December 1977. In 1993, back in France, the civil party received a letter from the International Red Cross confirming that Ouk Ket had been at Tuol Sleng from June 15th to December 9th, 1977, in cell number 23, room 2, Building C. 16 She returned several times alone to Cambodia, at her own expense, to photograph this cell and gather evidence and information and, following the establishment of the ECCC, she decided to be a civil party “to bring back Ket’s dignity that was stampeded at S-21”. 17 The Trial Chamber relied upon Martine Lefeuvre’s testimony as reflecting the “devasting consequences of the Accused’s crimes on these detainees’ families”. 18
Statement of Harm
Martine Lefeuvre described the harm she experienced as follows: "This is an absolutely inexcusable murder. And for the past 32 years Ket's absence is something that we cannot bear. It is a permanent absence. My children grew up without the presence of their father; a presence that was comforting, a presence that would protect them; without his affection, without a fatherly figure. That is to say everything that organizes the life of a child. Ket's suffering was and is still our suffering and it does not go away with time, and I can tell you that the suffering in fact is more and more intense. It is like a gigantic screen that would be too close to our eyes. Until today we still haven't found the body. We do not have any kind of restitution. There has not been any tomb. I have no documents from the Cambodian authorities and the result for me is complete human failure. So therefore I came before this Chamber in order to ask for justice to be done -- justice to be done for this barbaric crime so that we can finally take into consideration Ket's suffering and the suffering of all of the other Cambodians, whether they were in S-21 or anywhere else in the country, and so that they can also take into consideration the suffering of the survivors. I came here also before you in order to bring back Ket's dignity that was stampeded at S-21". 19

Videos

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Video 1
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Video 2

Testimony

DateWritten record of proceedingsTranscript number
17 August 2009E1/63E1/63.1

Relevant documents

Document title KhmerDocument title EnglishDocument title FrenchDocument D numberDocument E3 number
ទម្រង់បែបបទព័ត៌មានជនរងគ្រោះ LEFEUVRE MartineVictim Information Form of LEFEUVRE Martine Formulaire d’information sur la victime de LEFEUVRE Martine N/AE2/85
ឧបសម្ព័ន្ធ១៖ លិខិតឆ្លងដែនការទូត របស់ LEFEUVRE MartineAnnex 1: Diplomatic Passport of LEFEUVRE MartineAnnexe 1 : Passeport diplomatique de LEFEUVRE MartineN/AE2/85.1 and E2/89.3
ឧបសម្ព័ន្ធ៤៖ សំបុត្រអាពាហ៍​ពិពាហ៍ អ៊ុក កេត និង LEFEUVRE MartineAnnex 4: Marriage certificate of OUK Ket and LEFEUVRE MartineAnnex 4: Extrait de l’acte de Mariage de OUK Ket et LEFEUVRE Martine N/AE2/85.4 and E2/89.4