Mr PHON Thol

2-TCW-933. Born on 16 June 1950 in Rongoeun, Svay Rieng district, Svay Rieng province, Mr Phon Thol currently lives in Ratanakiri province. He is the ex-husband of witness Ms. Moeurng Chandy, 2-TCW-867. They separated in 1986 and Mr Phon Thol married another woman. The couple worked in a rubber plantation from 1962 until 1977. After the evacuation of Phnom Penh in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge set up a union to manage the rubber plantation. The witness was arrested on 16 June 1977 and sent to Au Kanseng re-education centre with other union workers and his wife, Ms. Moeurng Chandy. Mr Phon Thol was interrogated without suffering physical harm. He was accused of belonging to the upper class and using modern techniques of the feudalist class instead of farmer’s techniques. His wife was pregnant at the time of the arrest and their daughter was born in prison.

Through the cracks in the bamboo wall of his cell, Mr Phon Thol witnessed the arrival of a Jarai group to the re-education centre. He estimated some 100 men, women and children were brought in two trucks. The group stayed less than a week and, through the cracks of his cell wall, he saw how they were walked away from the prison by Au Kanseng security guards. Two days later the witness was assigned to work in the jackfruit plantation 1 km away from the compound of the education centre. Under the palm trees he saw a grave with half buried bodies. At the rim of that grave there were blood and personal belongings he believed belonged to the Jarai group that, at that point, he suspected had been killed. While working at the jackfruit plantation keeping people away from the land, the witness saw how people were killed by security guards of the education center. The bodies were thrown into trenches dug by former Lon Nol soldiers. One time a security guard asked Mr Phon Thol to bury a body of a prisoner who tried to escape. On a different occasion the witness heard a guard telling people how he had slashed a woman’s back open and removed her gallbladder and hung it in the kitchen. The woman worked in the rubber plantation and had been accused of immoral acts.

Mr Phon Thol was not harmed during interrogations, but he saw how other prisoners were beaten and electrocuted. He described the living conditions at the re-education center and the treatment of prisoners. He managed to escape the center in December 1978 during a Vietnamese offensive.

  • Witness acronym :
    2-TCW-933
  • Age at the time of testimony :
    66
  • Appeared as :
  • Cases : Case 002Case 002/02
  • Date(s) of testimony :

Transcript from testimony

Video recordings