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Mak Remissa / AP
Former Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, died in a Cambodian hospital early Wednesday morning. (File photo)
Rob Hamill is disappointed that he will never be able to sit down with the man responsible for his brother’s torture and death.
Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Comrade Duch, died in a Cambodian hospital early Wednesday morning (local time).
The head of the notorious S21 prison camp under Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people, including Hamill’s brother Kerry, in 1978.
Talking to Stuff From his catamaran off Cape York, Australia, Hamill said Duch’s death was “shocking.”
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DOMINICO ZAPATA / THINGS
Olympian Rob Hamill is disappointed that he will never be able to sit down with the man responsible for the death of his brother Kerry. (File photo)
“He looked very fit and healthy at the 2009 trial, and after the sentencing announcement, when he was initially given 19 years of service, I thought back then that [being released at] 86 was very doable, but obviously not.
“I guess the confinement, the isolation, the loneliness, the way he treated his prisoners sometimes, it didn’t work out very well for him.”
Duch was the first high-ranking Khmer Rouge figure to face the UN-backed tribunal that had convened to deliver justice for the brutal rule of the regime in the late 1970s, credited with the deaths of 1 , 7 million people, a quarter of Cambodia’s population at the time.
After serving 10 years in prison, Duch died at the age of 77.
Hamill testified at Duch’s trial in Cambodia and at the time, the former commander of the torture camp claimed that he did not remember Hamill’s brother, Kerry.
And with the news of the death, Hamill said he was very upset to realize that he would not be able to face Duch as he expected.
TV3 / SUPPLIED
Kerry Hamill, brother of rower Rob Hamill, was executed after the yacht he and his friends were sailing veered into Cambodian waters in August 1978.
“There is one thing that disappoints me with his death… I wanted to meet him in person.
“He said he would meet with his victims, but I sent him three invitations and he declined all of them.
“Our plans were to sail to Cambodia… and if we had succeeded, I was hoping to reissue that invitation to meet with Duch, speak with him and ask him some very direct questions and see his response.
“That is the only disappointing aspect of this.”
Kerry’s final “confession,” something all the prisoners were forced to write, was dated Oct. 18, Hamill said. Kerry is believed to have been executed at least two months after his capture.
DOMINICO ZAPATA / THINGS
Rob Hamill said the big question now for Duch – who, at the time of his trial was a “born again Christian” – is: has he been forgiven?
“That pain never goes away, and any family that has lost a family member, be it a parent, a sister, a brother, a son or a daughter, the pain is always present and there are always triggers.
“In this case, it doesn’t bother me, but you always think about what could have been, what could have been if one thing had been a little different,” he said.
Hamill said the big question now for Duch – who, at the time of his trial was a “born again Christian” – is: has he been forgiven?
In Duch’s ancient religion, Buddhism, rebirth is determined by karma, and Hamill said that whatever form karma appeared, he suspected there would be something, even if that saw Duch appear as a cockroach.
“He is one more bad person who is not with us,” he said.
“Duch’s passing is a time for all victims to think of their loved ones and pray that these kinds of things never happen again.”
