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Bou Meng, Survivor of Khmer Rouge Security Prison, Dies Aged 85

The painter was one of 14,000-plus men, women, and children who were sent to S-21 between 1975 and 1979 – and one of just a handful to survive.

Bou Meng sells copies of his autobiography at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Mar. 17, 2013.

The Cambodian artist Bou Meng, one of the few known survivors of the notorious S-21 security prison in Phnom Penh, has died at the age of 85, severing another living connection to the worst atrocities of the Khmer Rouge.

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), a U.N.-backed tribunal that has tried a handful of former Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide and other crimes against humanity, said in a statement that Bou Meng died at 11:00 p.m. on Friday “due to age-related illness.”

“The passing of Mr. Bou Meng represents the loss of an important historical witness to the grave crimes committed during the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, particularly to the history and tragedy that took place at the former S-21 Security Centre,” the ECCC stated.

Bou Meng was one of 14,000-plus men, women, and children who were sent to S-21 during the 1975-1979 rule of Democratic Kampuchea, as the Khmer Rouge state was officially known. After taking power in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge made a mad dash towards agrarian utopia, emptying most of the cities and towns, and putting Cambodians to work on grim rural labor communes. During its three years, and eight months, and 20 days in power, the Khmer Rouge caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people, through disease, starvation, and execution.

S-21, also known as Tuol Sleng, was built in a high school in the southern suburbs of Phnom Penh and served as the nerve-center of the regime’s fearsome security apparatus. Nearly all of those sent to S-21 were interrogated, forced to sign mostly false confessions, and then executed at a “killing field” on the city’s outskirts. Only seven adult prisoners were known to have got out alive.

As he recounts in his memoir, “Bou Meng: A Survivor From Khmer Rouge Prison S-21,” in 1977, Meng was arrested and accused of spying for the United States and held for two years at S-21. Like Vann Nath,........

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