The master of confessions
Subtitle: the making of a Khmer Rouge torturer
By: Thierry Cruvellier ; translated from the French by Alex Gilly
Contributors: Gilly, Alex, translator
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 326
ISBN-13: 9780062329547
Subjects: Trials, litigation; Political atrocities; Parti communiste du Kampuchea; Trials (Crimes against humanity); War crime trials; History
Work titles: Maître des aveux
Description: With chilling clarity, a veteran international journalist delineates the totalitarian ideology and horrific crimes of the leaders of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge. A witness to and chronicler of the war-crimes trials of Rwanda (Court of Remorse, 2010), Cruvellier likewise attended the arduous eight-month Khmer Rouge Tribunal in 2009 of the notorious head of the S-21 "death mill" in Phnom Penh, Kaing Guek Eav, aka Duch. Duch managed the prison, formerly a high school, between 1975 and 1979, and he was tasked with interrogating, eliciting confessions by torture and "smashing" the victim--the verb preferred by the court. A meticulous, methodical former math teacher and a loyal Khmer party member, Duch, then in his mid-30s, was the "perfect fit for the job" of interrogator. The pride he took in his work was reflected in the careful records he diligently kept and did not destroy before he fled upon the invasion of the Vietnamese in early 1979.
Notes: Originally published in France in 2011 by Editions Gallimard/Versilio as Le maître des aveux.

Includes bibliographical references.