The purpose of the S-21 was to detain and torture prisoners in order to obtain confessions, then the prisoners would be killed, and the confessions would be handed over to the leadership of the Democratic Kampuchea regime.
Between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge regime arrested more than 15,000 to 20,000 prisoners from all over the country and detained them in the S-21 Hospitals, among them members of the Khmer Rouge movement accused of treason, political leaders, Eastern and Northwest Communist Party officials, foreigners, and Vietnamese civil and military personnel.
A small number of prisoners were released by the Khmer Rouge after being taken into custody at the S-21 Hospital, and of those, only 12 victims survived when the National Salvation Front overthrew Phnom Penh.
The arrest and execution of women as wives and children were carried out in accordance with the Communist Party of Cambodia's policy of "digging grass is digging up the roots."
The S-21 Department, as a highly organized administrative unit, maintains a detailed record of the list of incoming prisoners and photographs of the prisoners.
Prisoners are brought in face wraps and under armed protection, often accompanied by large vehicles traveling for hours, sometimes more than 10 people. And the prisoners were tortured to force the retrieval of confessions.
Methods of torture include: beating with a spear, wires, beating with a rope, wires, discharging wires, burning with electric lights, inserting or removing fingernails, toenails, immersing the head in a bucket of water, strangling the head with a plastic bag, tying the legs upwards, and forcing the stool and drinking urine.
Kang Ngoc Au called Duc as the head of the department and died in 2020 after being sentenced by a court to life imprisonment for Khmer Rouge leaders.
Most of the detainees at the S-21 Department were taken to be killed at Champion (currently the Champion Cultural Center, a historic tourist resort) located in Lo Lo Village, Sangkat Champion, Khan Dong Khong, Phnom Penh, approximately 14 km south of Phnom Penh.
At night, the prisoners were taken from the Hospital-S21 to Champion Lake in large trucks with 30 to 40 prisoners being carried one by one.
Before the Khmer Rouge regime collapsed, in early 1979, most of the prisoners at the champion were taken out in large trucks to be killed elsewhere, while high-ranking prisoners were killed on the spot, and very few prisoners survived.
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