french security advisers hold back 14 documents

. . .


NEWS


Thirteen of 26 new national security documents involving former French president Jacques Chirac are likely to stay top secret, despite links to an inquiry involving alleged assassination.

Just 11 of the documents were recommended for full release on 4 December 2008, according to last Friday’s Official Journal, a state gazette.

“Partial declassification” for two further documents were made by members of the CCSDN, la Commission consultative du secret de la défense nationale.


A powerful advisory commission overseeing judicial inquiries and other requests for release of national defense secrets, CCSDN members recommended against the declassification of 13 documents.


This compares with earlier recommendations releasing 16 of 17 documents from another dossier considered by CCSDN.


All 132 recommendations from the national security commission have so far been accepted by ministers of the day.


First story on the new documents appeared at a quarter to six last Friday evening, according to a timestamp on a story at Le Nouvel Observateur, a weekly newsmagazine.


The report was picked up by Tahitipresse, publishing online 4:19 hours later, adding direct reference to the five-year-old Clearstream scandal.


Neither reported who submitted the 26 documents for declassification.


Two judicial inquiries are active.


Links to Jean-Pascal Couraud, a former editor in Pape’ete, emerged when leaked documents exposed a Chirac bank account in Tokyo with 300 million Francs, about US$70 million.


Various witnesses have told the media of Couraud investigating the account before he disappeared 11 years ago on a Monday night, 15th December 1997.


The Tokyo bank is owned by a relation of Gaston Flosse, a former president of French Polynesia.


CCSDN recommends solely on declassification of documents concerning national security.


In this latest decision, the 13 still-secret documents join one earlier paper, held back from a first dossier of 17 recommended for declassification.


This brings a total of 42 documents considered for declassification since October, with 27 recommended for declassification, 14 staying top secret and two partially declassified.


The CCSDN never releases documents itself.


First, a minister must consider the commission’s recommendations, and, if accepted, documents then go to judicial inquiry, for possible publication with findings, months or years later.



. . .

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An open letter to Oscar Manutahi Temaru

Image
. . . Reasons to keep Maohi media > an open letter to President of French Polynesia, Oscar Manutahi Temaru, 15th December 2011  Kia orana Mr. President, Fourteen years ago today, a journalist named JPK disappeared from the island of Tahiti. To this day, top secret documents remain on file, linked with this journalist, but denied to investigatory judges by a national security commission.  Similar documents also link JPK with a separate investigation into Clearstream, the world's largest bank, a bank for banks. At no time since the era of nuclear testing have people French Polynesia come closer to the raw power of the French state, a savage mafia "melieu" involving intelligence services, judiciary and diplomacy.  Disappearance of Jean-Pascal Couraud on 15th December 1997 saw the loss of an opportunity to expose hidden back-channels of global finance.  A "secret, and secondary, banking system" as it was descri
Read more

home

. . . HOME JPK Update takes today's headlines from leading news sites, most in French, just a few in English, about a Tahiti scandal that started out as an allegation of assassination and continues, to this day, to ensnare a widening ring of global figures. Most significant, former French president Jacques Chirac, alleged to have held roughly US$70 million inside a Tokyo bank set up by the family of a protege, former president of French Polynesia, Gaston Flosse. Disgraced United States investor Bernard Madoff - accused of spiriting away US$50 billion, the biggest fraud in court history - is another well known name emerging in links with Clearstream, a clearing bank. A kind of bank-for-banks, Clearstream officially acts exclusively as an independent check on transactions between banks. Allegations emerging in 2001 saw Clearstream accused of opening secret accounts for some of the world's biggest banks, as well as for private individuals and other "non-banks." Jean-Pasc
Read more

clear as mud

Image
. . . France's judicial system Clear as mud The Clearstream case raises anew questions of judicial independence Feb 4th 2010 | PARIS | From  The Economist  print edition AFP De Villepin hits back HOW independent is the French judicial system? That question has been thrown into sharp relief by the public prosecutor’s decision to appeal against the acquittal on January 28th of Dominique de Villepin, a former prime minister, in the “Clearstream” smear-campaign trial. One of the civil plaintiffs in the case was Nicolas Sarkozy, who has long claimed that Mr de Villepin was out to thwart his political career. Mr de Villepin evidently failed. Mr Sarkozy claimed soon after the acquittal that he accepted the verdict—and yet the public prosecutor promptly decided to appeal. Ever since, rumours have swirled of plots and counter-plots. Mr de Villepin was quick to cry foul. The decision to appeal, he claimed, had been taken “during a meeting at the Elysée”, Mr Sarkozy’s official
Read more