In this role, Ieng Sary publicly and repeatedly dismissed reports of atrocities and mass killings. However, a chilling account of life in the Foreign Ministry’s camp in Phnom Penh, code-named B-1, was later provided by Laurence Picq, a Frenchwoman who had married a Khmer Rouge activist but later defected from the movement. In 1984 she wrote a book in which she described a seminar in the camp in 1978: “Ieng Sary spoke solemnly about the purge movement. Foreigners had undermined the whole state, he declared. Two new spy rings had recently been dismantled. The first had been led by one Van Piny, who had confessed that one of his crimes was wasting 50 coconuts. 'Fifty coconuts!’ Ieng Sary repeated with an offended air. 'That’s economic sabotage!’”