Bou Meng, a Cambodian artist and one of the few known adult survivors of the Khmer Rouge’s S-21 prison, died Aug. 14, 2026, at 85, the Phnom Penh Post reported.
Bou Meng was brought to S-21, the Khmer Rouge prison that later became the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, in 1977 and held there until 1979. He was interrogated and tortured before prison authorities assigned him to paint portraits of Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge leaders. His usefulness as an artist helped spare him from execution.
After Cambodia’s liberation, he returned to Tuol Sleng in 1981 and worked at the museum. In January 2003, after earlier accounts had reported him dead, he reappeared in Phnom Penh and said he wanted to tell the world about Khmer Rouge crimes and testify if a tribunal was held.
In 2009, he testified as a civil party, a recognized victim participating in tribunal proceedings, in Case 001 before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge tribunal. He described Duch’s role at S-21 and the torture he endured. The tribunal’s trial judges relied on his testimony in findings concerning murder, extermination, imprisonment, torture and other inhumane acts.
In 2010, the Documentation Center of Cambodia published Huy Vannak’s biography, Bou Meng: A Survivor from Khmer Rouge Prison S-21, Justice for the Future, Not Just for the Victims. It recounted his survival and his effort to use his memories to seek truth and justice.
In 2011, he sold biographies of his experiences to visitors at Tuol Sleng, using his presence there both to support himself and to recount what happened at S-21.
