TAK Boy
Pseudonym: 2-TCW-908
Cases: Case 002/02
Category: Witness
Tak Boy was recruited as a rank-and-file soldier in the Lon Nol army in 1972 and was stationed at Phnum Srok district in Battambang province.
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In early 1977, he was sent and forced to work at Trapeang Thma Dam Worksite situated in Trapeang Thma village, Phnum Srok district, Sector 5, Northwest Zone.
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There, he was a platoon chief within one of the mobile units operating at the worksite.
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He testified as a witness before the Trial Chamber in Case 002/02 about his role as a Lon Nol soldier before 17 April 1975 and the circumstances that led him to survive the Democratic Kampuchea period despite his enemy status as a Lon Nol soldier.
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Role as a Lon Nol soldier
Boy testified that he was in active combat against Khmer Rouge soldiers, participating in the battlefield two or three times but that he did not know whether the bullets he shot hit the opposing party.
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He claimed that he had never seen captured Khmer Rouge solders being decapitated.
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The Trial Chamber did not find any inconsistency in his testimony about his role in the Lon Nol military.
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Events at Trapeang Thma Dam
The witness testified that he tried to hide his background from cadres while working at the dam site but unfortunately some information was leaked.
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He claimed that he managed to hide his biography but for a short period of time only.
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Boy told the Court that back then if it was discovered that a worker was a former solider, gendarmerie, or customs officer, that individual would be killed.
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He claimed that the upper echelon did not lay out such instruction.
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However, he observed that from time to time people disappeared, and most of them were former solders or civil servants.
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Responding to the question posed by the Defence for Nuon Chea as to why he was not killed when he stated he was a Lon Nol Soldier in his biography,
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the witness explained that he wrote several biographies where he indicated that he was a solider for only a short period of time in order to conceal his membership in the Lon Nol military, and finally, when asked by the new cadres coming from the Southwest Zone, he claimed that he had always been an ordinary citizen:
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“At that time, I wrote that I also had joined the army, but I held a small position. Under his supervision a chief asked me. I told him that I was a soldier for three months. A new chief came, and he started screening my background again. I wrote him that I was a soldier for one month prior to peace. When another new chief came, I wrote that I had been in a village self-defence unit”.
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The witness further explained that he was not executed because he was placed under the administration of people from the Northwest Zone
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who, in fact, were people from his area, village or commune.
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The Chamber found this explanation consistent with his previous statement to DC-Cam.
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This explanation was also, according to the Chamber, consistent with the evidence provided by Chhum Seng, a company chief at the dam, who indicated that at the beginning of the DK period there was a certain degree of tolerance towards the former Lon Nol soldiers as the militiamen in the villages had personal links with some of them.
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The Trial Chamber concluded that it found his explanation credible as to why he was not killed despite his background as a Lon Nol soldier.
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