Justice at Last?

Khmer Rouge navy chief Meas Mut (L) enjoys a relaxed moment at his village pagoda in Samlaut, Cambodia. Mut, the former top commander of the navy platoon that machine-gunned Glass, is widely believed to be among those under investigation in ECCC Case 003. (Courtesy of Dave Kattenburg)

Trial for Americans murdered 30 years ago convenes in Cambodia

Jun 20, 2011
By David Kattenburg
The Epoch Times

Meas Mut, a self-professed Buddhist, denies any knowledge of the yachtsmen’s murders. Mut “lies about virtually everything, as far as I can determine,” an informed tribunal observer quipped.

At the end of April, a pair of tribunal judges announced, without comment, that their two-year investigation of Case 003’s 48,000-page dossier is now complete, leading observers to conclude that the judges consider the case closed.

“As long as Hun Sen maintains influence over this court and protects high-level Cambodian government officials from investigators, we will never have any real justice,” says Don Bittner, a cousin of murdered American yachtsman Lance McNamara.

The families of four Americans brutally tortured and killed by a genocidal regime may finally see justice as the trial of the regime’s senior leaders convenes next week on the outskirts of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.

California yachtsmen James Clark and Lance McNamara were captured in April 1978 while sailing off the coast of Democratic Kampuchea—as Cambodia was called under the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge.

Two more Americans, Californian Michael Deeds, and Hawaii resident Christopher Delance were seized seven months later, under similar circumstances. All four were trucked off to a Khmer Rouge death house in Phnom Penh, codenamed S-21, tortured into confessing they were CIA agents, and finally killed. A New Zealander, an Englishman, and a pair of Australian yachtsmen suffered the same fate. A Canadian was shot and killed on his yacht.

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