Original subtitles

On the afternoon of the thirteenth,

we thought we could hear a boat engine

at intervals throughout the afternoon.

But we couldn't be sure.

Suddenly a boat came in closer.

I was about to go up on deck when the boat opened fire,

and sent some shots over our mast.

I am deeply honoured and moved to be here today,

given the opportunity to speak.

I realise that this is a privilege

made available to a few,

especially compared to the numbers of families

that suffered under the Khmer Rouge regime.

I arrived in Cambodia last week.

Last Thursday 13th of August was, coincidentally,

31 years to the day

that my brother, Kerry Hamill,

first set foot on Cambodian soil.

This is the story of an innocent man,

brought to his knees and killed in the prime of his life,

and the impact his death had on just one family.

I was fourteen when Kerry went missing,

and sixteen when we found out the terrible news.

How can you say no? Hello Ivan!

My brother, Kerry, was sailing this beautiful little

double-ended sloop

with his mate, Stuart. Uh... Stuart Glass.

They had actually picked up a charter -

a guy named John Dewhirst, an Englishman.

Together, they sailed up the coast of Malaysia

on their way to Bangkok, and we believe

they got blown off course by a storm...

ended up in Cambodian waters.

They were attacked by a Khmer Rouge naval gunboat.

And at that time Stuart was shot and killed,

and my brother and John Dewhirst were taken prisoner

and were later executed.

Brutally.

Kerry was the eldest of five children,

and I was the youngest.

We grew up in the coastal town of Whakatane, New Zealand.

We were a very loving family, and we

spent loads of time together outdoors.

And it was an idyllic childhood, really.

Spent time running around in the hills,

on the beach surfing, or out at sea.

And as the first born, I think

Kerry was very, very special to my parents...

Arguably their favourite child.

After Kerry's death, my saviour was my hyperactivity.

You know, I was permanently physically active -

and in sport, my passion was rowing.

I was very focused and ended up

winning medals on the world stage.

I competed at the Olympic Games, and went on to...

win the first ever rowing race across the Atlantic Ocean.

"It was billed as the longest rowing race..."

"Rob Hamill, organiser of the campaign

and an Olympic silver medallist..."

"They expected just a few days of headwinds,

but continued for weeks..."

When I was mid-Atlantic,

it actually brought out all sorts of...

emotions that I hadn't really experienced

since Kerry had first gone missing.

I often thought of him out on the briny, you know...

The old sea salt.

And um... But that...

with the physical exhaustion,

and combined with this intensely prison-like boat...

And it was like a coffin really.

You know, all that time grieving at sea

became a catalyst really. A turning point.

The beginning of a journey, I suppose,

to honour my brother's memory and to...

try and discover the truth.

I then heard that there was going to be a trial.

Tuol Sleng, S-21, the most notorious

prison of the Khmer Rouge regime.

It's proving a valuable source of documents

for the upcoming war crimes tribunal in Cambodia.

They include so-called 'confessions'

extracted under torture,

and the photographs of the estimated 15,000 victims.

Two million Cambodians died during the regime -

of starvation, overwork and execution.

The boss of Tuol Sleng, Comrade Duch,

will be the first to go on trial.

He converted to Christianity in 1995,

and was discovered near the Thai border

working for 'World Vision'.

Comrade Duch is the man most responsible for Kerry's death.

He's going to be the first to go on trial,

and I've been invited to give

what is called a 'victim statement'

at the War Crimes Tribunal.

In fact, I think I'm going to be the only Westerner to testify.

I decided to it the moment I heard I could do it.

Absolutely. Straight into it. Got to be done.

Having said that, it didn't really dawn on me

what I was prepared to do, really...

Recalling all the pain that the family went through,

and the sadness, and grief, and sense of loss...

I can't help but extrapolate out from that

the Cambodian people, you know?

You just cannot get your head around it.

It's always been there - you've always wanted to do

something like this haven't you?

Certainly to visit Cambodia and...

retrace Kerry's footsteps.

Maybe this is on a bigger scale than

Rob had originally planned to do.

You know I kind of... is it actually...

Is it actually making a difference?

I don't know. Is it really...

...well, maybe its not going to make a

big difference to the whole world...

but it's going to make a difference to your family -

well, hopefully - certainly.

And, like you say, not passing it on -

the trauma - down the line because

you are talking about it,

you do get emotional, you can say it was wrong.

And, to be able to stand up in court and also say that.

Nobody has been brought to justice.

For 30 years, it's just been like,

'Oh that happened, let's forget about it, move on everyone.'

And how can they move on?

They're all feeling like you do.

Yeah, I think the point is, though,

is it going to make a difference?

Yeah, I think it is.

Look, on a personal basis, I could argue not.

Because all it's doing is dragging up all the old crap...

all those bad memories, all that hurt and pain.

And... go to the court, see this guy,

say you're a... this is what I think of you

and this is what I think of your bosses... and go home.

If you take that way then it's not gonna help...

I don't know if that's gonna be...

But that's not gonna help...

I know, I'm just hypothesising, Rach, just let me...

"I think it was very wrong what the Khmer Rouge did

to all the other people that came

to where they were in Cambodia.

It was very wrong what they did. The end.

P.S. I wish I had met my dad's brother Kerry.

It is very sad that he got killed,

and I like your photograph on my dad's computer."

The more I hear about some of the things that happened,

and the more understanding of what took place there...

and I want to forgive, but the harder it will be to forgive.

Yeah... Sometimes I feel a real hatred towards him.

I have no idea how I'll feel when I get there.

I really want to see what Cambodia is like,

but I don't know who I'm going to meet.

I guess people who might have suffered like Kerry...

but perhaps also those who inflicted so much pain.

You know, it's 31 years to the day that my brother landed here.

To the day.

And the first thing they did was take my photo.

That's the first thing they did to Kerry, you know?

Took his photo.

It's not a good sign.

Certainly, I wasn't expecting to go to

the courthouse in the first 20 minutes,

but I was in email contact from Singapore with my lawyer,

and he called a meeting to discuss my victim statement.

He also wants me to feel comfortable with

the atmosphere inside the courtroom itself.

In the Franco-Germanic system, there is another element

that is inserted into the trial process:

that is the voice of the victim.

Victims can appear in their own right.

These groups are called civil parties.

And the civil parties are not restricted to survivors.

In other words it's not only those that

have been kept in S-21 and survived,

but those that have lost loved ones.

I was surprised that I actually was going into the court

and it was very quick, and the next thing...

I didn't realise it... I walked in and here he is...

right before my eyes

the man who killed my brother: Duch.

The judges came in, and we all stood, and you know what?

I looked across the room and he was looking at me.

And I held his eye. I held his eye... for a long time.

It must have been at least ten, maybe fifteen seconds.

And we just stared at each other,

and he finally looked away.

He looked away.

And uh... I dunno, is that some small victory? It's pathetic.

Duch was a Chinese-Cambodian, ethnically.

He was a great student;

he ranked number two on the national math exam,

and then studied at the

Institute of Pedagogy under Son Sen

who would become minister of defence for the Khmer Rouge.

And it was at that time that he was radicalised

and became a member of the Communist Party.

Duch ends up in charge of a prison,

which is where he begins his training

as an interrogator and a torturer...

and then ends up heading Tuol Sleng (S-21)

which is the mother of all torture centres in Cambodia.

As soon as you entered Tuol Sleng your fate was sealed.

You'd be immediately photographed,

put in a cell, tortured...

and then told to write a series of ever-wilder confessions,

proving that you were an enemy of the Pol Pot regime.

Duch's job was not to find guilt or innocence

through a process of confession.

Confession was just another

check-mark that he needed completed

as part of a process by which somebody would end up dead.

It's a very apt symbol of the regime because

here is this complex of two good schools

you know where children were taught -

and it was empty, like all schools.

Education was over; children no longer had childhood.

He was a teacher.

And he was turned into a torturer.

I mean that's, again, the apt symbol.

That they would put a teacher in charge

of a torture and execution centre.

The most hurtful thing, I think,

of all of this, apart from the loss...

is the thought of what they did to my brother. It's terrible.

It's incredible.

God.

You know, this could be Kerry.

This could very... he looks Western to me.

That looks like a Western face.

There's mathematical precision here, from a maths teacher.

This is all meticulous planning.

There's nothing random. There's nothing random about this place.

Is he?

So he worked-they worked at this prison?

He would be 15, 16 years old?

Really young.

I'm not, you know, I'm not connecting this with Kerry.

You know. It's best not to.

I dunno, I dunno.

I'm hoping there was some special treatment given,

that they didn't need to do any of this.

Could be your best mate's kid, or

could be one of my kids, you know?

Now here's a photo of Duch that I haven't seen before.

The Documentation Centre of Cambodia,

or DC-Cam as it's known,

is the hub of research for the trials.

It's unearthed more than 600,000 documents

that are being used in Duch's trial alone.

All roads seem to lead to DC-Cam's director, Youk Chhang,

who's been called 'The Conscience of Cambodia'.

Wow, look at this place! This is an indication of a busy man!

Wow...

Have a seat.

Thank you, thank you very much.

I don't want to impose, you feel...

and I understand the incredible privilege it is to be here.

You know, I'm very fortunate,

because there's so many millions that...

won't get that opportunity.

He's pleading for forgiveness.

That's the struggle, because...

on one hand, he was taking orders.

Just like the guards that he was giving the orders.

On the other hand, he was a brutal, clinical butcher.

Destined to go to jail?

Oh, ok.

So if I were to ask one question,

that you would like me to ask in court...

what would that be?

Yes...

"Rob?"

- Yes. - Hi, I'm Terith.

Oh Terith, hello! Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you by now!

Look, thank you. You know, I... From my memory it was you who...

informed me about the civil parties...?

Yes, together with Sarah Connors...

That's right, and Sarah as well! That's right, Sarah and you.

If it wasn't for you two,

I wouldn't be going through this process right now.

I didn't know about it, and had about

5 days to finish the application, right?

- That's right, yeah. - It was really tight.

Thank you very much for letting me know.

You're welcome.

When are you going to testify?

Either tomorrow afternoon, or Tuesday morning...

Probably Tuesday morning, possibly tomorrow afternoon.

I've been writing lots of stuff to say.

We've got to nail it down now, big day tomorrow.

- Nice to see you. - Good to see you.

You're going to be amazed by the cars,

and the traffic, and it's fantastic.

I could see this family go past...

Yeah, it's amazing.

To be fair to Duch, he is the only one

of the five Khmer Rouge leaders charged

who's taken some responsibility.

Well not responsibility, as such,

but he's admitting he's committed certain crimes.

He's expressing remorse and pleading guilty

in a legal sense, at least.

The problem is, Duch's still claiming to be a victim,

that he was forced to follow the orders of Pol Pot.

How can you forgive someone who doesn't fully

accept responsibility for what he did?

He's tried continuously, as a defence strategy,

to say, 'there's duress...'

'I didn't want to do what I did, but I didn't have a choice...'

But over the course of 4 years or so,

there was ample opportunity to make a good getaway.

To try and flee.

At least while you're doing something one finds repugnant.

Like causing agony to fellow human beings.

He didn't do that. He thrived in the regime

that was the Khmer Rouge

in Democratic Kampuchea. He loved it.

It gave him a sense of purpose and identity.

Karim Khan heads the legal team working

with me and some of the other civil parties.

I'm going to visit his fellow lawyer, Alain Werner,

who's helping me write my victim's statement.

Alain and Karim have been really supportive

and have long histories fighting these kinds of legal battles,

working in countries devastated by genocide and war.

You need to be in charge, not him.

You are the one who needs to be in charge in court.

And you... Now is the time for the civil parties to come,

and for their grief and suffering

to take the central stage.

I think it's important for you to hear some things,

and there are some very powerful questions here...

'What do you remember of my brother?'

'How long was Kerry in prison?'

And, 'When did you order his killing?'

'How and where did Kerry die?'...

'Where was Kerry buried?'...

Fundamental, core questions.

Sure, ok. 'Did you ever believe in Karma?'

You could say, 'I learnt that you became a Christian...'

because it's around this forgiveness theme

which is important in this trial,

so I would like to ask the accused of Duch

if, in spite of the fact that he became a Christian,

does he believe in karma?

Karma wouldn't left him off, you know. He's going to pay.

It's karma. It's just the order of things in their beliefs.

And whereas Christianity... he's ok, he's...

'You're ok, bud, no, we forgive you...'

'Away you go...' It's just... it's too convenient.

Is that a bit pointed?

No, no, it's your time. There's lots of anger and trauma...

and that's what it is.

And don't worry about it, just, you know,

be polite, be respectful...

But I mean... it's not a fairytale, by any means, so...

Ok.

I'm flaming nervous.

It's such a big deal and I know that...

talking to Youk... what he said

in terms of what we're representing as Civil Parties...

we're here to help the judges with their sentencing process,

and if Duch gets one year less than he deserves, then he's won.

It has to be nothing else other than

for the rest of your living days.

Is your name correct, Robert Hamill?

Yes, that is correct.

Kia ora koutou. Greetings to all.

Your honours, I strongly believe that my

personal suffering cannot be understood

unless the chamber is properly informed about

the impact of Kerry's capture and death

on our family, which was effectively destroyed.

Kerry had left New Zealand after going to University

and headed towards Darwin,

where he aimed to sail around Asia and, eventually, the world.

It really broke me up because, to me,

I see this beautiful girl, who's...

in love with my brother, and he is just

looking real chuffed with himself.

He is, he is so chuffed, and he's exceedingly happy.

- And to me... - well we were...

...that was just such a beautiful image."

I can't remember how long I knew Stu

and Kerry before we actually took off

it was only a few months.

I didn't actually work on the yacht,

but them coming along and saying

'oh, we've done this, we've done that,

and we've sorted out this...'

'and we're going to be ready to sail in

a few days, and it's not a problem...'

And of course days would go on and...

'Uh, something else has come up!'

And, finally, they got it all ready and ship-shape.

Well we called it the 'hippy trail' in those days.

There was a well-worn path up

through Asia, through the islands.

Indonesia was a definite place that everybody wanted to go to

because it was so exotic, and still very new then -

it wasn't developed at all.

And just listening to different music,

and different sounds of the language, and...

generally we were very naïve.

"Unless we indulge in wishful thinking,

the lives of Americans

remaining in Vietnam after our next withdrawal..."

You can't exaggerate the sense that Vietnam was the centre of

the cold war at that stage in Asia.

"Let us go to the map again. Here is South Vietnam..."

The Viet Cong had done incursions into Cambodia

and were using Cambodia as a safe haven.

As a result, the US felt obliged

to go after them on Cambodian soil.

I remember when the bombing started - it was amazing.

I had never seen American bombing.

It was... extraordinary.

On March 18th, 1970, there was a coup d'état in Cambodia.

Prince Sihanouk, who was head of state,

was deposed while on travel abroad.

Sihanouk made the biggest mistake of his life.

The Chinese convinced him to join

his enemies, the Khmer Rouge.

This was huge.

It meant that everyone in the countryside,

the Cambodians in the countryside who adored him -

automatically had sympathy for the Khmer Rouge.

It was certainly a mixture of extreme Maoism,

as romanticising an agrarian life...

Mixing into that,

I think some of the Khmai mythology

which is, if Angkor Wat can be built

by the Khmai in the 12th century,

then anything's possible, if only the

right leaders could come into power.

It was awful enough to watch this spiral of

destruction in the country. It was so quick.

In months, you would see a city going

from this gorgeous city to... nothing.

The Khmer Rouge were cutting off all the

routes, there was no food,

the corruption got worse and worse, the rich flew away...

And, you know, it was emotionally awful.

And I had no faith in the Khmer Rouge.

And I was way too young.

I did not want to stay for it. So I left.

A lot of the times we would deliberately go

to beautiful uninhabited islands

especially if we had a charter on.

The coral and the fish in that part of the world

is just staggeringly beautiful,

and very - at that stage - wild and untamed.

What drew me to Kerry in the first place, of course,

was that he was drop dead gorgeous.

He was a very practical man and I really loved that:

that he would take the time to show

me everything that was on the boat,

that I wanted these endless probably

naïve silly questions to him,

and he would explain it all, and again if I didn't get it...

and that he would just, yeah, be generous with his time

and he was to other people as well.

We didn't have enough language to

get into the politics of the places

so... yes, we didn't have any idea about

what was happening with Kampuchea at all.

We were in this... maybe white man's bubble?

I'm sure you can see that, at 26 years of age,

Kerry was having the time of his life.

Fortunately, Gail left the boat at

around this time to visit her family.

She and Kerry planned to meet up a couple of months later.

John Dewhirst, an Englishman, joined

Kerry and Stuart on 'Foxy Lady'

shortly before he was to return to England.

I love those photos. They're sort of family heirlooms now.

So when... when was that? What was the date of that?

Um... uh... um...

Doesn't matter.

June, June-July, '78.

Oh was it?

A couple of months before.

Gosh, gosh...

Yeah, I've got a nice picture of my brother.

It's in a frame, but I keep moving it

around the house... it's never been on the wall...

I move it round the house 'cause I sort of want

to know it's there, but I don't want to see it.

So it's hidden behind pieces of furniture.

We had the most wonderful, wonderful upbringing.

We were just good friends, we had a lot in common.

Just an average brother and sister.

Don't know what he's doing with no clothes on...

He's an artist.

Yes!

You know, he was a very sensitive,

artistic sort of bloke, and...

you know, the whole confession thing, CIA spy...

And, you see the sort of person he was and...

not the sort of person to be a spy.

A CIA agent.

He did write and tell me that he'd met

up with some people who had a boat

and he was going to go on this boat

and he was really excited about it.

He told me it was called 'Foxy Lady'.

On the afternoon of the 13th,

we thought we could hear a boat engine

at intervals throughout the afternoon.

But we couldn't be sure.

Shortly after dark I went below to make some porridge,

and suddenly a boat began to close in on us very quickly.

The boat came in closer.

I was about to go up on deck when the boat opened fire,

and sent some shots over our mast.

The gunboat came in closer, and lit us with its spotlight.

Stuart was shot, and Kerry helped

him out to sea in a lifebuoy.

He told me later that Stuart had died, and been buried at sea.

Koh Tang Island is where Kerry and his mates on 'Foxy Lady'

were sheltering when they were seized.

Koh Tang was, and still is, some kind of military base.

It's so long ago now,

however I'm hoping someone actually remembers Kerry.

I'm travelling with Kulikar Sotho,

who runs a production company here in Cambodia,

and she'll help me ask some of the locals a few questions.

He's never seen it since he moved here, in 2000.

OK...

This house where we are standing now, you see this concrete?

Built by the Khmer Rouge.

It used to be the headquarters of the Khmer Rouge.

Yeah, Khmer Rouge navy base.

And your brother could well have been brought here.

First they should go to the headquarters, wouldn't they?

You would think so - some sort of processing centre,

and this would be the first one.

It's so peaceful.

I'm very keen to meet Meas Muth,

the former chief and commander of the Khmer Rouge navy.

I heard he was based at the port where Kerry was captured,

and, ultimately, I believe, he is

responsible for my brother's fate.

I'm sure he would have had the power to release Kerry.

This area is pretty much still a Khmer Rouge stronghold.

Thousands of former cadre melted back into the general population

into these villages, after the fall of the regime.

Many of the leaders, those most culpable,

have done very well for themselves.

Meas Muth is typical.

As well as having been commander of the navy,

he's also been an adviser to the current government

and maintains a position of power,

wealth and influence today.

Could you ask him if he's ever seen...

He said never, he's never seen it.

This is my brother.

Could he tell me the procedure that you took

if a Western boat or any boat was captured?

What was the procedure from there?

Could you ask him about a report that we received...

suggesting that he personally went out to Koh Tang Island...

to escort back some Westerners?

Ok. Philosophers... right.

You know, like, brainwash them.

Easy word to say is 'brain wash them'.

Yeah, ok. And you believe that's his role? Do you believe that?

You know, it's um, it's hard to say because...

he has very nice face. Very gentle face.

Reading his documents doesn't match

what he looks like, and what he says now.

It's normal that not everybody will tell us the truth.

No, that's right.

It's quite normal.

Yeah.

How would they be treated in their time?

He said that he thinks it is universal.

We will not forgive them. We will have to... let them go.

Exterminate them.

If Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge had remained in power to today,

how much better do you think it would have been?

He believes it is under one million.

It's like one day we are in heaven -

the French called us the 'Pearl of Asia' -

and then from being the pearl of Asia

to be the 'Hell of Asia', if you like.

And now we are still suffering - look, look, look.

If you are out of the city you see the poverty still exists.

I mean every single Cambodian,

whether you are Cambodian local...

Cambodian overseas, Cambodian American, Cambodian French...

we all got affected. You know, all our families got affected.

Well I was very small.

I was born 1973, so by the time evacuation take place...

when the Khmer Rouge marched in, I was just about two years old.

My dad held me in his arms, you know,

carried me out of the country.

So, my mum, my father, and myself,

just marching out of the country with other people.

All they told us is just to get out of Phnom Penh.

Everybody else brings like food, rice...

but my father carried Beatles records, because he loves music.

My father was a pilot. He was a pilot.

- A pilot? - Yeah, a pilot.

And when they got into the village they

registered truthfully of who they were.

So my father was a pilot, and that's what he wrote down.

They told my mother that they take

my father for 'political study'.

But when they say political...

'Political study' is just a term to use to be taken to kill.

Koh Tang is down through there.

Uh... yes, down through there.

So they would have arrived,

coming through the gap of those islands there,

and came straight into this beach, to the naval beach,

where the navy base is.

It would be so nice for Dad to have

shared this... you know... this time.

You know, go out to the island...

Would have been very difficult for him,

but... You know, to be able to say goodbye...

Because mum and dad didn't get that chance to say goodbye.

I always wanted to go back to the village

where my father... was...

executed.

Just to see where the prisoners were situated,

and how he was held in there.

Just to see the atmosphere around the area.

And, yeah, exactly the same thing...

Just so that I feel like I have touched base with him... and...

and just to let him know that he should

be proud of how I've become today.

My mother was becoming a rice farmer.

She has always trained to be an intellectual...

so to go back to being a rice farmer,

it was a big struggle to begin with.

In the Khmer Rouge time, everything belonged to Angkar -

including the children.

I am not my mum's daughter, I am the daughter of Angkar.

So, all the children had to be sent

to Angkar children's community...

where they wash your brain.

They teach you to identify the mistakes of your parents.

There's no relationship -

there's no commercial relationship -

there's no schools, there's no churches,

there's no religion, anything.

It was turning the country into a prison camp.

Being city dwellers, my family was not capable of living

under the conditions that the Khmer Rouge were demanding.

And my father succumbed to malnutrition and disease.

It was a daily struggle for survival.

Trying to find enough food,

trying not to get so sick that you were going to...

get weaker and weaker and go on a death spiral...

as well as trying to make sure you didn't

stick out, and cause attention upon yourself.

I think the killing... they aim for high ranking politicians.

But also killing because of the jealousy,

because of the personal revenge also.

And um, also killing because you have fairer skin...

you have white skin and therefore

you represent a good life once.

You represent - you know nothing to do the rice farming.

For my father's case - he's a pilot,

he's handsome, and he has white skin.

So he's a perfect target.

The amazing man whom I have never met.

So, Meas Muth has confirmed that Kerry and John...

would have been transported from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh.

And the first person they would have seen

when they arrived at Tuol Sleng prison

was the photographer, Nhem En.

Their blindfolds would have been removed,

and he would have been there before them.

Did he see much of Duch?

When he looks at those photos now, does he see them as art?

Do you recall taking the photo of a New Zealander?

Duch, what do you remember of my brother?

As you will be well aware, Your Honours...

in every family everyone is interconnected.

A family shares in happiness and warmth,

a family shares in depression and misery.

My family's disintegration is my disintegration.

Kerry used to write home about once every month.

Some weeks passed without any communication

The weeks turned to months.

Our family home was positioned at

the mouth of the Whakatane River.

Towards the end of the year, my mother, Esther,

would gaze out to sea and say...

"It's ok. He'll turn up at Christmas and surprise us".

Mr President, you, like myself, will perhaps remember...

the days before mobile phones, the internet and 24/7 news.

It was in this time of letters and telegrams

my father, Miles Hamill,

wrote letters to the ports of Asia

and the New Zealand government requesting information

about the Foxy Lady and any possible sightings.

I did expect to hear... I wrote off a couple of letters to him.

But then I couldn't work out

why he hadn't written to me...

and I was just very, very upset...

and thinking, 'Oh well, I guess it's over then...

if he hasn't written to me that means

he doesn't love me anymore and I'm...

just going to have to go on with my own life.'

All the time that my brother was away, we kept in touch...

writing letters really regularly...

and then his letters stopped.

And I think it would be quite a few months,

I started to worry that I hadn't heard from him.

And I desperately wrote letters.

And um... and just nothing. Nothing ever came back.

I was fourteen when Kerry went missing,

and sixteen when we found out the terrible news.

How did you find out?

Our neighbours rang us and said, 'You'd better get the paper.'

Oh no!

And so I went down with my second

eldest brother, John, to the shop...

and the local dairy guy, Mike,

was there, and I remember his expression...

'cause on the front when he handed over the paper...

- ...It was on the front page? - Yeah, yeah.

When I first found out...

I was sure I was going to die of

this feeling - that I've still got.

I didn't think you could carry on

being alive, feeling like that.

I just shut myself up in the room for a

couple of days and wailed my heart out

because I just had never conceived

that something like that would happen.

I remember standing in the kitchen, hugging my father,

both of us crying...

for what seemed like a very long time.

It was the closest I had ever felt to my father.

Never in our worst nightmares

had we considered the reality...

of what had happened to Kerry.

Death not by shipwreck, not by drowning or freak accident...

but death by torture.

Death by torture - not over a few seconds,

or minutes, or hours, or days, or weeks even.

Death by torture over a period of months.

And blindfolded?

He was seated on the chair with the number tag on,

and he was photographed.

Like Bou Meng, Vann Nath survived Tuol Sleng

because he was a good artist.

He began these paintings after the fall of the regime...

to try to capture memories that no one,

including many of the survivors, wanted to deal with.

I went to S-21 and... I saw your paintings.

That was the first painting he did for S-21.

Because back then, when he was held as a prisoner...

he was hoping that if he still alive, he will draw one image...

that represent the prisoners in there.

All you are thinking of is...

something to eat. He's hungry all the time.

It's hunger. Hunger, hunger, hunger.

They question him that, "Tell me now..."

you know, "When did you join CIA?"

Can you describe to me what were

the different types of torture...

that were given to the... to the prisoners.

And to feed prisoner with their excrement, or urinate.

He said that from that time until now

is, like, a long period, and...

he saw the man just about ten minutes,

so he is not sure, but he looks familiar.

And so, on day nine, because

he still says, "I don't know about CIA..."

"I do not know about KGB"

then they use the pliers to pull his toenail

and the nail doesn't come out quickly

enough, so they, you know...

swirl the nails, like this.

He knows that there were foreigners in there

because there were time to time he heard foreigners screaming

he heard a voice screaming,

which is not the Cambodian voice.

Did you ever see any Westerners being at S-21?

Does he recall the height?

One is shorter, and the other one taller -

almost taller than him.

That's my brother.

That was my brother. Yep.

After the two weeks of torturing

Duch said to him to draw our big brother portrait

the Brother Number One - because

it is very, very important for us.

His pictures did not save only his life

he saved Duch's life, and Duch's position.

Duch took it to see the Big Brother

Brother Number One, Pol Pot -

and Brother Number One was appreciate with that painting.

That's why they still keep Duch to work

in the prison as the head of the prison.

Since Vann Nath spoke to me, he's done two paintings of Kerry

one of which is as he remembers him

arriving at Tuol Sleng with a young guard.

Quite painful, but very moving.

He then took photographs of many dead people

who had received torture to the point that they died.

And he would have known that a lot

of those people were innocent.

And he see people, and everyone knows

that he has been involved with that

so he feels very, very shy with what happened

so he feels, like, sorry for that.

Ok.

You know, for people watching this,

that is all you can do. That is all you can say.

And that's all we want to hear.

I know Kerry was physically and mentally strong.

He would not have succumbed easy.

I know this individual may not be my brother, Kerry

just another poor soul at S-21 -

but the way he is shackled,

the way he has been grotesquely beaten...

this man's struggle to hold on to life...

for me, Mr President

this is my gorgeous...

this is my gorgeous, beautiful brother, Kerry Hamill

at S-21.

This is the sort of image that has haunted me.

When I was sixteen, and still haunts me today.

There was a general culture at the prison

that whenever somebody walked into it

they became the walking dead.

When that becomes a reality -

as once you have signed your confession -

it just has to be extracted.

And what did they do to my brother to get that confession?

So there's a confession that's typed in English also.

Yeah, so they type it in English and then type it in Khmer.

Obviously that's to go to the bosses.

This is it. This is Kerry's confession.

Taken under duress.

And I guess this is the Khmer version.

I'm from New Zealand, and I am the CIA.

I hereby do testify,

have used the modern equipment of Meremere...

Ah, Meremere.

Yeah.

Yeah, ok.

Meremere is a... I think it was a gas-fired power station

or it may have been a coal-fired power station.

He's just... You know, there's a lot of humour here.

And can you believe he's trying...

he's just trying to have some fun.

"I enrolled in the Psychology for

Intelligence Officers Course."

"This was taught by an American CIA

intelligence officer, Major Ruse."

And a 'ruse', of course, being a con.

"A course on covers for intelligence officers

was given by a 'Colonel Sanders'..."

Um... Which is obviously, under duress Kerry

was retaining some sort of sense of humour.

"In New Zealand, where they have CIA offices in

Whangarei, Auckland, Hamilton, Rotorua" -

and that's our home town - "Whakatane...

Gisbourne, Taupo, Wanganui, Wellington,

Blenheim, Christchurch, Dunedin and Westport."

And Westport's like a village the size of...

Well, back then it was particularly small.

It was almost as if he was trying to...

give some sort of sanity to this insane situation that he was in.

And almost sending a message back home.

Viktor Frankl, who was a survivor

from the holocaust, wrote that...

you know, forces beyond your control

can take away everything you possess

except for one thing: the freedom to choose

how you will respond to that situation.

And, for me, Kerry responded with the

most incredible courage and strength.

"We were taught interrogation techniques, such as

confusion of prisoners' time and space and orientation,

the effects of changes in attitude towards the prisoner,

lack of sleep, pain, etc."

And you could interpret that that's

what he was experiencing at that time.

"The public speaking course was compulsory

for all the second year students.

This was taught by Mr. S. Tarr, of the Carnegie institute.

Tarr was the head of the CIA office in Hamilton.

He held the rank of captain."

And 'S. Tarr', of course, is my mum. Esther.

Yeah, and as I said, she was a lovely speaker.

She had this lovely Irish lilt...

Yeah, you know, it was a message to my mum.

It was a message to my mum.

It's a 12 page document that he signed

at the end with his thumb print...

basically signing his death warrant.

Was there a special branch dealing with the foreigners?

And if so, what were the procedures applied to them?

So the Khmer Rouge retreated to the North West part of Cambodia

and into Thailand, where they

found refuge from the Vietnamese.

And they set up their operation there

to try to win back Cambodia

and they continued to operate from the

border region for the next 20 years.

Duch runs off with the Khmer Rouge

and he ends up becoming a born-again Christian on the way

and works for World Vision,

changes his name - leads a new life.

But there are hints that he has done some terrible things.

And until he is discovered by journalists,

he had been living a pretty normal life.

I would like to describe how my family struggled -

and perhaps failed -

to cope with my brother's death.

With your leave, Mr President, I would like to begin

by telling you about my brother, John.

The loss of his closest sibling had a massive impact on John.

Eight months after he found out

what had happened to my eldest brother, Kerry

he threw himself off a cliff near our family home.

My father, Miles, and my third brother, Peter

retraced his footsteps to the edge of the cliff

and saw his body at the bottom of the rocks.

He and Kerry were so close -

there was only 18 months between them.

Kerry would have been called a sensitive, new-age guy

whereas John was Rolling Stones, you know... Neil Young.

But that difference also was a good thing too, I mean...

I can't help but think of them together, actually.

Kerry dying... John six months after

we had the memorial for Kerry.

Duch, when you killed my brother Kerry,

you killed my brother John as well.

Leave the flowers alone, ok?

Can you read it? See what it says?

Every Christmas Day mum would disappear,

and come up here on her own.

Did she?

Every Christmas day. She'd say something like,

"I just have to go out for a while..."

"Go to the shops", and we knew where

she was coming; she was coming here.

She did that every Christmas day.

Oh, Rachel.

I know.

So Christmas Days were pretty tough.

No, Christmas was a terrible time for mum.

It's too late for dad.

And obviously my mother, you know. Wherever she is.

That looks like Esther.

Yep. Very young there.

A beauty.

"Good day for a sail."

That's right, that's that photo of the boys

after the storm - the Wahine storm.

And Kerry's adapted a little mast on the dinghy

and the sail, and he's helming...

and John's yelling, "Get out of the way!"

I mean, he never got any solace.

He never got any closure, of any shape or form.

You know, wind this clock back now for

what's going on with the court case now...

wind that back 20 years...

But now it's too late, it's too late for dad.

Duch, at times I've wanted to smash you

to use your words -

in the same way that you smashed so many others.

At times I've imagined you shackled,

starved, whipped, and clubbed viciously...

Viciously.

I have wanted you to suffer the way

you made Kerry and so many others.

However, while part of me has a desire to feel that way

I am trying to let go.

And this process is part of that.

Well done.

Thank you.

Sometimes it does give a different perspective

to have somebody from a different

culture give an account.

It's the same shrill cry from Cambodian,

or New Zealander, black or white.

It's the cry of humanity.

Sometimes one can't get the point across with one argument.

It's that second attempt to portray

the same scenario differently

that hits home and say, 'Ah, now I understand.'

Let's recall that, unlike his prisoners at S-21,

to whom this accused denied

even the slightest shred of humanity

he is being met with open and even

handed justice in this court.

There were twelve thousand three hundred and eighty moments

when the accused could have done the right thing.

What is fairness? Fairness, for me, would be

he should be killed the way he killed the prisoners

he should be tortured the way he tortured the prisoners.

That would be fair.

So we are not talking about fair any more,

we are talking about acceptable.

And acceptable, for me, is life sentences.

We implore you, that you do not come back with a sentence

for less than 40 years.

I actually feel Kerry's, kind of, presence actually...

I know that sounds a bit odd, but...

You know, I'd like to think he's here watching us,

looking down, saying, 'It's about bloody time.'

'It's about bloody time.'

Tomorrow will be a test.

That old adage - the judges try hard cases,

but hard cases also try judges.

They have to assess the submissions

of the defence and of the prosecution

and of the civil parties

and put forward a story that actually will do justice

to the people that have suffered,

to the people that have lost

and to the people of Cambodia

that have waited far too long

for anything approaching justice.

Yes, yeah of course, yeah.

He did eleven years

and then they've stated five years,

you have a 35 year sentence

which is down to 19 years...

I think that's uh, you know, that's not nothing.

He could live to be a free man.

He's... what? 66? 67.

So 19 years... 86.

That's definitely possible. My father's older than that.

Aside from the tariff and the sentence,

symbolically, what does this represent to you

after such a long time waiting for it?

It's a completion of a journey for my brother.

Um...

It, um...

You know, our family suffered a great deal,

and the people of Cambodia suffered

enormously.

And I only hope this is the first shackle to be broken

of the chains that have been holding down this country...

this beautiful country, the beautiful people.

And it's the process of letting my brother go.

31 years ago my brother was captured

by a Khmer Rouge gunboat.

Stuart Glass, his Canadian friend, was killed at that time

and he's out here in these waters somewhere.

His remains.

And Kerry has never returned to us, in any form.

And I want to be able to say goodbye

to him, I want to let him go.

I want to say farewell.

And I think now's the time.

I was given a special taonga, or treasure,

from a friend back in New Zealand.

He said, you may not want to do anything with it

but then again, you might find the time and the place

where you may want to just do something with it.

This is a greenstone, it's a beautiful stone.

This is where the horror began.

To a gorgeous, beautiful brother.

May he rest in peace.

"A guilty verdict has been reached in the Duch case.

The focus of the ECCC will shift now to case 002.

4 members of Pol Pot's inner circle:

Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, and leng Thirith

have been indicted and face a range of charges

including genocide, and crimes against humanity.

Some of the evidence that came to light in the Duch trial

will be instrumental in the prosecution

of the former leaders

who, unlike Duch, have so far denied responsibility

for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge period."