In the ruined ballroom of the Bokor Palace Hotel it is easy to imagine, amid the shattered floor tiles and mouldy walls, the clink of champagne flutes and lively chatter of a night out in this tiny colonial hill station. A symbol of both the excesses of Cambodia’s golden age and the apocalypse that followed, the long abandoned hotel and casino is now only haunted by curious tourists.
A reputation for cruelty, even by the standards of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime he led, set Ta Mok apart from his revolutionary comrades and earned him the nickname of "The Butcher". Ta Mok died on July 21 at the age of 80 after languishing in jail since 1999.