NORNG Chanphal
Mr. Norng Chanphal was called to testify as a witness on the functioning of S-21.
After the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975, Norng Chanphal lived with his parents in a cooperative in Kampong Speu. His father, a Khmer Rouge cadre, worked as a railway worker while his mother was a farmer. His father left upon receiving a letter requesting him to work in Phnom Penh. His mother waited for him until a few months later she herself, along with Norng Chanphal, then 9 years old, and his little brother, were all taken to Phnom Penh. They were told that they would reunite with their father, but instead were sent to S-21.
Norng Chanphal was terrified when he saw his mother being mistreated upon their arrival at S-21. After one night in a detention cell on the second floor of a building, the children were transferred to the back of the building near the artists' workshop and placed under the care of an elder woman. There they heard screams regularly. Norng Chanphal informed the Trial Chamber that he saw his mother only one more time as she looked at him through the window bars of her detention cell. When the personnel of S-21 fled at the arrival of the Vietnamese army, Norng Chanphal and the four other children hid behind piles of clothes. He decided to stay at S-21 so that his mother could find him. One child died of starvation before the soldiers arrived.
Norng Chanphal later found his father's biography in the S-21 archives. He applied to become a civil party in order to find justice for his parents, but missed the deadline for civil party applications.
The Accused initially contested that the witness could not have been at S-21, as the policy was to kill all children who entered S-21. However, after S-21 records of the witness's mother were presented in court, the Accused acknowledged that the witness had been incarcerated at S-21.
- Witness acronym :
CP1/7
- Age at the time of testimony :
39
- Appeared as :
- Cases : Case 001,
- Date(s) of testimony :