Vann Nath In Coma

Rithy Panh, the most famous Cambodian film director announced a sad news, that Vann Nath had a heart attack on Friday night. Vann Nath is one of the survivor of the S-21 Khmer rouge secret prison. He painted several pictures witch are exhibited inside the Tuol Sleng Museum (former S-21) in Phnom Penh. By the latest news his in a cerebral coma. Hope he will survive and come back. I took the above photos in 2010 at the Tuol Sleng, when I met with Vann Nath fellow inmate Chum Mey, an other survivor. Today only three survivor remained alive, includes Van Nath the Battanbang born painter and Chum Mey the carpenter.

On the first photo Chum Mey posing for my camera next to Vann Nath paint. All the paints of Vann Nath can be seen, how the Khmer Rouge tortured innocent people.

The S-21, 14,000 men, women and children were interrogated, tortured and executed during the 1975-79 Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. Only seven survived.

to read more about Vann Nath, click here

and here

The Duch Verdict

Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, is the first cadre of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime is sentenced for 35 years by Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.

Mr. Chum Mey one of only survivor of Tuol Sleng (S-21) where Kaing Guek Eav alias Duch was the chief, demonstrating how was he chained in the same cell for years. Between 1975-79 as many as 16.000 prisoners, Khmer and Foreigner were held, starved to death, tortured or killed in S-21. Today the Khmer Rouge prison chief was sentenced to 30 years prison.