1. Ta Mok, known as Nguon Kang, was a Cambodian military chief and soldier who was a senior figure in the Khmer Rouge and the leader of the national army of Democratic Kampuchea.
16 Facts About Ta Mok
1. 2.
Ta Mok was known as "Brother Number Five" or "the Butcher".
3.
Ta Mok was captured along the Thailand-Cambodia border in March 1999 by Cambodian government forces while on the run with a small band of followers and was held in government custody until his death in 2006 while awaiting his war crime trial.
4.
Ta Mok became a Buddhist monk in the 1930s but left the order at the age of 16.
5.
Ta Mok took part in the resistance against French colonial rule and then the anti-Japanese resistance during the 1940s.
6.
Ta Mok was training to become a Bhikkhu in Pali, Cambodia when he joined the anti-French Khmer Issarak in 1952.
7.
Ta Mok was a member of the Standing Committee of the Khmer Rouge's Central Committee during its period in power.
8.
Ta Mok became very powerful within the party, especially in the south-west zone.
9.
Ta Mok was named by Pol Pot as leader of the national army of Democratic Kampuchea.
10.
Ta Mok lost the lower part of one leg in fighting around 1970 during the Cambodian Civil War.
11.
Ta Mok orchestrated several massacres within the territories that he captured from 1973, beginning before the final, complete seizure of power by the Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975.
12.
Ta Mok was responsible for directing the massive purges that characterised the short-lived Democratic Kampuchea, including the mass killing of 30,000 people in the Angkor Chey district, earning him the nickname Butcher.
13.
In 1997, after a split in the party, Ta Mok seized control of one faction and named himself supreme commander.
14.
Unrepentant, Mok chuckled as he debated whether the KR had killed millions of people or just "hundreds of thousands," claiming that he had only killed Vietnamese.
15.
In 1998, after several key defections, Ta Mok was forced to flee to Anlong Veng.
16.
Ta Mok was the last leading member of the Khmer Rouge to remain at large in Cambodia; other senior figures had died or already made immunity deals with the government of Hun Sen, including Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary.