Chapter 9: The Cruelty was Unbearable (Betrayal)

Piseth was well-built and very conditioned yet he was no matched with these guys.  They would employ gang style attack on Piseth as experienced on the first few hours when Piseth got to the prison.  The gang would make sure that newcomer succumbed to their rules and not fight back.

Odor from the toilet and human sweat coupled with extreme summer heat and inadequate ventilation made the prison cells a living hell.  It was estimated that about 3 out of 5 inmates were infected by tuberculosis, extreme skin rash or other communicable diseases.

Piseth sat and contemplated on how he will survive living in such a miserable condition.  He dreamed of his wonderful waterbed and large screen TV in a large open space back home.  Life was beyond heaven if he compared to what he was currently going through.  Was it compassion that leads to his down fall or was it just his naivite; Piseth questioned himself?

As he sat and dreamed; Robi the big brother came.  One of Robi’s lieutenants demanded, “Your job is to sit there and use the fan next to you to fan Mr. Robi” He continued..”it is not done until we say so, do you understand?”  By the sheer order, Piseth horriedly grabbed a hold of the makeshift fan made out of palm leaves and started fanning Robi.  The scene was amazingly odd because you had Piseth the size of a goliath fanning a little guy, Robi with both of his feet on Piseth shoulders.  Piseth did not have much choices but one could only guess what was on Piseth’s mind.  The fanning went on for more than four hours until Robi felt asleep then Piseth was told to take a break.

Water was scarce and rationed to only 5 gallons per day in a cell block shared by six inmates.  As a result, Piseth experienced extreme dehydration and would find himself constantly exhausted.  By the first week, Piseth had already loss ten pounds due to the inability to sleep from the heat, odor, mosquito bites, lack of water, and inadequate foods, yet Piseth was still hopeful that some how his family members  and Lundi will find ways to get him out of this misery.

Lundi, Piseth’s best friends had not been to prison since Piseth first got there because he knew that he could not do very much to help Piseth.  For Lundi, he knew full well about the systemic human rights abuses in the prison systems in places such as Cambodia, especially in remote areas such as Battambang.  Lundi also knew that Piseth would have to endure the hardship because he needed to focus on finding ways to help win his release from prison.

Lundi had gotten a hold of a high profile lawyer named Sombath from Battambang that had good reputation for winning cases that were difficult.  When Lundi presented Piseth’s case to the lawyer, he immediately expressed his willingness to help because Lundi was able to share with the lawyer about the nature of the case and how things unfolded thus far.  Mr. Sombath, as an experienced lawyer, he sensed the case had merit and was confident that he could win the case.  For high profile and difficult case like Piseth, Mr. Sombath would normally charge $30,000 to $50,000 dollars; but for Piseth Mr. Sombath was only asking for a deposit of $2,000 to open the case and an additional $3,000 upon winning the case.  

Mr. Sombath was so confident that he could win this case despite the fact that he knew that he had difficult roads ahead of him.  Essentially, Mr. Sombath will have to challenge a criminal case where the accused has already been found guilty in the eyes of seven different NGOs and Institutions that had been led to believe by the evidences from the autopsy and accusations made by Piseth’s wife, his mother-in-law and the victim.  Most importantly, Piseth written confession in front of the three police officers during the interrogation on the night of his arrest. 

How will Mr. Sombath prove that Piseth was innocent and the crime was never committed?