Tuol Sleng Photographer Testifies

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Khmer Times/Jonathan Cox

The photographer whose portraits captured the bleak gaze of thousands of prisoners at the Khmer Rouge’s most notorious prison testified yesterday at the war crimes tribunal, in the second day of hearings about crimes committed at the Tuol Sleng security center. Nhem En, sharply dressed in a suit and tie, told defense counsel Victor Koppe that he was only 16 when Angka, the ruling body of the Khmer Rouge, sent him aboard a boat to study photography in Shanghai, China.

At a time when the borders were sealed and most Cambodians were forced to work in labor camps, it was a rare opportunity to leave the country. Mr. Nhem said his good behavior earned him this special treatment. “I had a good background,” he said. “I was part of the revolutionary movement, and I had good discipline, so I was selected to go study in China.”

After returning from China, the teenaged Mr. Nhem was given a job as staff photographer in the Tuol Sleng interrogation center in central Phnom Penh, also known as S-21. He was one of the first people new prisoners saw when their blindfolds were removed and they were seated on a small wooden chair to have their portraits taken. Mr. Nhem sometimes saw the same prisoners again after the interrogations were over, as the Tuol Sleng photographers were also tasked with taking pictures of the bodies of the dead. An estimated 12,000 people were tortured and killed at Tuol Sleng before the fall of the Khmer Rouge.

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