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CROSS EXAMINED 'I profoundly dislike criminals and people who think they're above the law,' says Robert Petit. A divergent path Robert Petit has made a career out of prosecuting war criminals from some of the world's darkest periods. BY GLENN KAUTH It was 1996, and Petit, then a Crown prosecutor with the federal Integrated Proceeds of Crime unit, was looking for a career change. While walking his dog down rue Saint-Denis in Montreal, he found an opportunity in the guise of Luc Côté, a defence lawyer he had faced in court, who at the time had begun working with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The tribunal was looking for people with expertise in common law who spoke French, a description Petit easily fit. Soon after, Petit was off to Rwanda for I what turned into a three-year stint work- ing in the prosecutor's office in the capital Kigali. Since then, he has continued glo- betrotting as an international prosecutor, t was, in many ways, a chance encoun- ter that took Robert Petit on a career path spanning Rwanda to Cambodia. working for the United Nations in Kosovo as well as jobs in hot spots like East Timor and Sierra Leone. For the last three years, he has been in Cambodia prosecuting alleged perpetrators of the Khmer Rouge genocide that left an estimated 1.8 million people dead between 1975 and 1979. It's a job for which Petit, who studied law at the Université de Montréal, clearly has a passion. Noting he hates bullies, Petit says his focus in becoming a lawyer always was to work as a prosecutor. "I profoundly dislike criminals and people who think they're above the law," he says. "I think the rule of law is the best protection we have." It is perhaps fitting, then, that Petit finds himself opposite Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, in the Cambodian court. The former chief of the Khmer Rouge's brutal S-21 jail, Duch faces alle- 18 JULY 2009 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com gations of murder, torture, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in connection with the mistreatment of up to 16,000 prisoners before their deaths. He is the first former Khmer Rouge leader to come before the court, and already the proceed- ings have sparked Duch's apology for his atrocities at the jail. But so far, Petit remains skeptical of the move. "The apol- ogy is interesting. You don't see that too often, even in national courts. The genu- ineness of it, who knows? I've seen Duchs all over the world." Petit, 48, adds while Duch's statements are unusual, they haven't yet revealed the full story of what happened at S-21, key to helping the tribunal achieve its goal of unearthing the truth. "He's not admitting to having much power or independent authority," he says, noting he believes the