LEV Lam
Pseudonym: TCW-386
Cases: Case 002/01
Category: Witness
Background and role
Lev Lam testified in Case 002/01 as a witness.
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Lev was a Khmer Rouge militiaman from 1972 to 1975.
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He was stationed in Svay Chuk commune, “engaged in production at the rear” rather than directly fighting Lon Nol’s Khmer Republic.
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He claimed that he was “too low rank” to know about Khmer Rouge leaders’ operations.
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The Trial Chamber relied on his evidence in finding that Khmer Republic soldiers and officials were killed.
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Arrival of the 17 April 1975 evacuees
According to Lev, about 200-300
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families entered Svay Chuk from Kampong Chhnang and Phnom Penh around a week after 17 April 1975.
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They were on foot, lacked food, and some were sick but “compelled to keep moving.”
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They received no medicine despite requests,
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and had to stay “under” villagers’ houses or the shade of trees.
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The district leader required the evacuees to produce biographies.
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Lev said that “[b]ased on their answers, they were classified into two categories: the ordinary people such as rice farmers and non-ordinary people such as soldiers, civil servants of Lon Nol and capitalists.”
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He did not know how these were verified
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but they were reviewed by the village chief and cadres.
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Exhumation of the killing site and after
After January 1979, Lev witnessed people looking for gold digging out pits near Prey Totueng, and he saw skeleton remains “scattered everywhere.”
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In 1981-1982, he saw similar pits near the site where he claimed that he took people to be executed.
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He estimated that there were 700-800 bodies in 20 graves, as he saw 20-30 skulls in each pit and believed that there were still unexhumed graves.
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Because the “executions carried out at worksites and cooperatives did not fall within the scope of Case 002/01,” for which Lev was testifying, the Trial Chamber did not “have regard to these deaths in reaching its findings on the specific criminal charges in relation to movement of the population.” Nevertheless, it still “include[d] this evidence…to present a full account of events.”
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