jpk update

An open letter to Oscar Manutahi Temaru

2011-12-15T23:07:00.000-10:00

. . .

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 described next door in the Cook Islands, by a former prime minister, Sir Geoffrey Henry, during the 1995 Letters of Guarantee scandal. No one believed him then. Few believed JPK later.

A third person met with disbelief is Denis Robert, a man who exposed Clearstream as rotten to the core, reporting on "false assets" of some USD $1.5 trillion.

That was in 2001, a year now famous not for that expose, but for the New York start of a so-called War On Terror.

Over the years, at the same time as children, women and men were dying in Afghanistan and Iraq, Clearstream bank kept its legal department busy, filing more than 30 different defamation claims against Denis Robert, serving him with more 600 writs alleging malicious wrongdoing.

Robert kept busy too, writing and releasing The Black Box, and, when that was also pulled from shelves by nervous publishers, retreating to the sanctuary of the arts, writing text for a graphic novel titled The Affair of Affairs.

All three books are of enormous significance to Tahiti because the resulting court cases were only cleared this year, a full decade after the first book of Robert was published. Significant because your Supreme Court stared down the world's biggest bank, telling Clearstream that regardless of the veracity of claims contained in the Robert books, all that concerned the court was whether he had, as an investigative journalist, acted with ethics and according to generally accepted practice.

They found that he had. All 30+ defamation cases, and 600 writs, dismissed. As Robert said, it was >

" A victory for journalism. "

But the victory was much, much bigger than just journalism, and here lays the true significance for Tahiti Nui.

Bigger by far is the victory for democracy, and its reinforcment of recognition for the functions and role of the Fourth Estate. This year also sees the 50th anniversary for the mostly well-regarded Colombia Journalism Review. Their anniversary slogan >

" Strong Press . Strong Democracy ."

This slogan might seem a bit ... rich ... coming from a nation that gave us the Global Financial Crisis, for which your country is paying dearly. That hosts secret finance centres so vast Time magazine reports the United States as the most corrupt country in the entire world. A country seeking extradition of Julians Assange, with presidential candidates publicly calling for prosecution or assassination of the Wikileaks founder. Perhaps a more accurate anniversary slogan for CJR might be >

"Weak Press. Weak Democracy."

Therein lies the point of this open letter. I am writing this as an open letter, not to show off a la Anglais.

But to report having failed since 1998 to open up links between Tahiti news media workers and their colleagues across the independent Pacific. I did try to present a few proposals, that get occasional official and private interest, but still, after six years, no progress. I am writing an open letter because I did try and be diplomatic and make suggestions to people close with you, and other leaders ... but failed.

And now this, these closures.

As leader of French Polynesia, Mr President, your party has clearly and transparently stated aspirations towards self-governance, perhaps on the Cook Islands model, but more likely full independence.

Anyone can understand your administration wanting to cut costs and would, if in your position, understand also the frustration of dealing with a biased press, even losing patience. Just as has happened among governments in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, with news media.

Yet, your administration is stripping itself of an institution that the Supreme Court of France has just recently confirmed as of strategic importance, rightfully beyond the powers of even the biggest multinational threat.

Murdoch may rightfully have his troubles with politicians globally, but it does not mean that BBC News should be in danger of shutting down. Nor is the PBS in the US facing closure. In Australia, the government slammed the door in Murdoch's face, hard, awarding the contract for Australia's world service, the ABN, back to their own state broadcaster, ABC, "permanently."

So seeing Murdoch named and shamed, and the News of the World forced to close its doors ... it might seem like a good idea for French Polynesia too - let's close down Tahiti Nui Television and Agence Tahiti Presse as well ! Especially the latter, for its historic bias against Tavini Huiraatira, remember? Back in the bad old days of Systeme Flosse?

Those days are over now, Mr President.

I remember my disbelief when it was reported that 20,000 people protested through the streets of Pape'ete, possibly the biggest per capita demonstration across all of our islands. I remember Walter Zweiffel, from ever trustworthy RNZI, showing me shots on his digital, including a shot taken afterwards, among the detrius, of a discarded banner, hand penned, reading :

" La justice française = 4 parpaing ''

French Justice = 4 concrete blocks. A mafia style hit. Just like in the movie theatres. Common knowledge that amazing day in French Polynesia was news that JPK had not killed himself, but been killed by local GIP thugs acting under orders from some other thugs, from France, recently "retired" from the DGSE. A nexus of DGSE heritage centres on Corsica, well known as the birthplace of the French mafia. Just like was shown in the well known movie, The French Connection, and its depiction of the grimy streets of a fave Corsican hang-out since the Second World War, Marseille.

But, wait, of course there is more, is there not Mr President?

Corse is, also, home island for a curiously large number of judges and prosecutors on the colonial circuit, courtesy of the world renown Systeme Chirac. Not so much a confetti empire, as a spaghetti melieu. The kind of prosecutor who rings the commissioner of police and tells them to "close the file on JPK. Accept no more evidence."

I remember the delerium of the night of "Taui", when the people of Tahiti Nui confirmed you as their leader, not long after that huge, huge protest. To walk away, now, from that kind of journalist heritage risks insulting that memory. Of Jean-Pascal Couraud, and all his colleagues who worked alongside him, fighting word-for-word with the entire panalopy of the French state, sometimes, literally, hand-to-hand.

Reporters like Reimuna Tufariua, for example.

JPK lost a fight, 14 years ago today, a professional battle turned deadly personal, but, like Reimana knew before, he, too, lost his battle, there was still a news war to be waged, media freedom campaigns to be won. Yet your own municipality broadcaster Te Reo Tefana is a sad shadow of its former self, stripped of resources, long lost as a global influencer.

Among our mutual friends and associates, Mr President, your personal dislike for journalists is well known, viewing the task akin to feeding vultures, or so I hear. Thus, you risk falling victim to that most effete of French colonialisms, intellectual snobbery.

Factoid from the US >

Four out of five "new" media sites online, like Facebook pages and Twitter profiles, point to "old" media sites like those provided, mostly free, by newspapers, radio and television. No doubt similar ratios apply in French Polynesia.

Fact is, like it or not, mainstream mass media remain the main source of current affairs and governance information among ordinary French Polynesians, as they do, everywhere.

In working towards a newly independent nation, Te Ao Maohi Ou, your presidency must urgently reconsider its reasons for closing down two pillars of your country's Fourth Estate. Days like this I remember the old cliche, "Don't get into Journalism if you want to stay Friends with anyone", but as a journalist I must ask this question, it's my job, sorry about it.

My question to you as President is this >

" If you do not trust the Fourth Estate, and do not trust your own people to run state broadcasting as an integral and fundamental part of an independent democracy, then why should your people trust you ? "

Fear not, Mr President, you are far from alone in the world facing this kind of question. In our already independent parts of the Pacific, all of us, politicians, press, pundits, an "arm-chair critic" like me, all of us, one big glorious mess, debating and grappling daily with issues surrounding news media, democracy, and all that stuff about freedoms and human rights.

I've seen the results of state broadcasting shut down in our own homeland of Avaiki, the Cook Islands. And Samoa. Cutbacks in Papua New Guinea.

An alleged tourism success story, the Cook Islands is slowly polluting itself out of the market, an already unimpressive affair relying heavily on penny-pinching Kiwis and pissed-up Kangaroos. News media based in Rarotonga went from being the most trusted institution in the country in 1998 to least trusted by 2008, thanks to the machinations of former bikie fraudster turned preacher man, George Pitt.

A political hit-man mow working his magic in Samoa, his actual homeland, Pitt used multiple conflicts of interest in his favour, and to win repeatedly against competitors.He got an exclusive ten-year broadcasting license, signed, coincidentially enough, by an acting Broadcasting minister, a close mate, while the real minister was out of the country. The Pitt family still run papers, TV and a radio station, but Pitt split from his young wife, and moved to Samoa.

In his absence, PMG has thankfully eased up on a daily diet of slimy innuendo and outright lies.

Samoa sacked its state journalists, and now enjoys less scrutiny around all sorts of legislative misgovernance. Like the land title registration act, one that stripped thousands of matai landowners of all their rights, unilaterally reasssigning those rights to a much smaller group of head matai, by no other mandate or consultation than parliamentary fiat.

Papua New Guinea is paying the price for its ignorance, after spending years listening to Australia rave on about free markets, and forcing the state broadcaster, NBC, to adopt corporate policies, effecting not quite closure, but certainly endless cutbacks to their ability to expose corruption surrounding the resource curse of mineral wealth. A logging company owns one of the two main daily newspapers, while the other is part of the global Murdoch empire, both welll known as proponents for extractive industries, and kind of soft on environmental issues.

Australia only woke up in recent years to the wisdom of leaving news media to those kind of players. Around 2005, aid agency AusAID started pouring millions into PNG state broadcasting, to start repairing decades of neglect. Decades of desperation, however, draw their ethical expense.

The current PNG media council is mired in a not-so secret scandal, joining widespread concern, across an island region with a news media in seriously failing health, along with metropolitan partners in New Zealand and Australia.

There is of course a complete media blackout in West Papua, our furtherest Melanesian cousin, mired for decades now in a dystopian genocide.

I've seen cutbacks to state broadcasters right across all our Pacific Islands, on official advice from neo-liberal fundamentalists in New Zealand and Australia, still today pushing a regional trade agenda, that, if passed will strip all our independent islands of social, political and economic autonomy, forever, in favour of transnationals.

It is of no coincidence, Sir, that the first official post held by Roger Douglas, of Rogernomics fame, was as acting Broadcasting minister in 1972. Cue 1984, and radical changes were made by an allegedly Labour government that remain to this day, including to the state broadcaster, TVNZ, a corporate poodle required to dance for profit, whoever is government of the day.

Today, it's allegedly a National party government, and they're so hot right now on the TPPA. Possibly means "French" Polynesia going independent, just in time to swap one form of serfdom for another.

Instead of French domination ... try English. Maybe call it Colonialism 2.0 ... an offer you can't refuse !

So yes, cut back on state broadcasting and help starve the people of the very thing they need most to survive endless machinations of the multinationals > independent, investigative information. I strongly suggest considering an alternative.

Watchdogs, not lapdogs, of the Press. Attack dogs of the Fourth Estate, if need be. Ever alert.

Mr President, you and your people are nuclear veterans.

Survivors, victims of an era of mutually assured destruction, a time of superpowers, and presidential admonishments against the influence, sought or unsought, of the military industrial complex.

In an original draft of that famous speech, Mr President, Eisenhour considered adding mainstream news to that mix, referring to a military-industrial-media complex, but went with the shorter version instead.

I remember as a teen feeling disgust, reading the slogan for the 24/7 nuclear air cover that America operated, around the clock, for decades, under the Strategic Air Command.

" The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. "

Still sounds so macho, so corny.

So imperialistic.

As an adult, sadly, I now know the bitter truth of that slogan, and how it applies across all facets of any putative democracy. In aspiring to greater freedoms, Tavini must accept greater responsibility with guardians of those freedoms, starting, not ending, with the Fourth Estate.

We see erosion of those freedoms under the English system, with a toxic media empire under Murdoch, and, indeed, with French journalism, going hand-in-hand with arms dealing.

A desire by Eisenhour to warn against a militiry-industrial-media complex seems as relevant today as it did then, if not more so. In an allegedly post-nuclear era among independent states, separate and vastly unequl, the only institution that can effectively and efficiently offer that kind of vigil, for all the people, Mr President, is a strong, proud and free, homegrown press.

It is your inalienable right right now, Mr President, as a French citizen, to demand fair treatment from any news source. It also within your current authority, and power, Mr President to empower and promote free, fair and independent information. To help, nay insist indigenous professionals and practitioners of local news enshrine their own codes of conduct and ethics, and demand local media accountability systems as the only condition, the only quid pro quo.

I've heard argument about the state keeping hands off the media, that funding news media may even be unconstitutional. This is colonialistic nonsense put about by vested interests. In fact, the constitution of France not only endorses freedoms of the Press, it calls for its plurality. In closing down TNTV and ATN, Mr President, you risk offending the spirit if not the letter of that constitutional guarantee.

Don't make the same mistakes we've already made in the independent Pacific. Learn from ours. That's how mistakes are supposed to work.

Don't help people trying to tear down Maohi journalism, help us build up an independent "industry" whose only job is to warn you and your people against all threats, local or foreign.

JPK may be gone. But, as his brother once said, in a funny kind of way, JPK is still doing his job today. Help his colleagues keep doing theirs.

kia manuia,

jason

. . .

jason brown

www.facebook.com/avaiki

+642102484560

. . .

clear as mud

2010-02-28T21:25:00.000-10:00

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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

AFPDe 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 residence. He knew, he told French television breezily, because he had himself served there for seven years as chief of staff to President Jacques Chirac. “I know the state, I know the public service,” he said. “There isn’t a shadow of a doubt.”

This week Jean-Claude Marin, the Paris public prosecutor, struck back. He had received no instruction from the Elysée, he insisted. His appeal was a matter of “conscience”, based on a close reading of the 327-page judgment. The judges had not only found the other two main suspects guilty, but also sentenced them to jail terms. It remains unclear who orchestrated their actions. For his part, Claude Guéant, Mr Sarkozy’s chief of staff, said that Mr Marin had neither asked for advice from the Elysée nor received any instruction.

Yet many rum elements to the affair remain. Why did Mr Sarkozy say that he would not appeal, when in criminal trials it is up to the public prosecutor? Why, if not for effect, did Mr Marin announce his appeal on live breakfast radio? (He said, deadpan, that this was because the appeals office closed at 5pm the previous day.) Why did public prosecutors in 2008 consider that there was not enough evidence to send Mr de Villepin to court, only to change their minds a few months later? As Le Monde, a leftish newspaper, said, it all leaves “the suspicion of manipulation”, whatever the reality.

The suspicion hangs in particular over the public prosecutors, who report directly to the justice ministry. The role of the Paris public prosecutor, who is appointed by presidential decree and is in charge of the biggest affairs of state, is considered to be highly political. The incumbent tends to change with the party in power. Nominees often have links to political parties. When the Gaullist Mr Chirac was first elected in 1995, for instance, he dismissed the Paris public prosecutor appointed by the Socialists. Influence is usually subtle and deniable. “The political authorities’ great trick, in affairs of crucial concern to them, is to give a trusted judiciary the illusion of freedom, even while ‘prompting’ the right answer,” says Philippe Bilger, the advocate-general in Paris.

Such worries also explain the unease over Mr Sarkozy’s plan to abolish investigating judges, who have sweeping powers to collect evidence, question witnesses and decide to send suspects for trial. Their robust independence has led to a few miscarriages of justice, but it has also exposed murky dealings among the political and business elite. The government wants to transfer investigative powers to the public prosecutors and turn investigative judges into supervisors, with powers to block or authorise an investigation.

The danger is that this will strengthen the powers of the prosecutors but do nothing to reinforce their independence. Even Mr Marin has argued that there may be a problem. “If appearances are against us to this degree, we need to look again at the status of the prosecution,” he said this week. Outsiders have similar reservations. In a parliamentary resolution last year, the Council of Europe declared that the abolition of French investigative judges was “widely suspected of being part of an attempt by the political authorities to increase their influence on the handling of sensitive cases.”

. . .

global news leak home suspends ops

2010-01-08T04:18:00.000-10:00

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NEWS

Wikileaks, the heir presumptive for all anonymous, open-sourced leaking springs a leak.

Usual story - cash.

Like the rest of world journalism in crisis, Wikileaks withers while the "communications" AKA public relations sector enjoys double digit growth: us$4.27 billion in the US alone.

. . .

clearstream answers remain unanswered

2010-01-08T03:34:00.001-10:00

. . .

Lots of questions, too little information about this important story.

Don't be fooled by the "false list of false bank accounts" smokescreen, either.

There are two lists.

One real.

One false.

Guess which one the English media are focusing on?

. . .

in reference to: (10/15/2001) Secret Banking System Welcomes Terrorist As Well As Corporate Money (view on Google Sidewiki)

flosse - senate refuses second immunity waiver

2009-09-27T19:23:00.002-10:00

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NEWS

Le Monde 16 September 2009

Gérard Davet

French Senator Gaston Flosse was to have been called before investigating judge Philippe Stelmach Friday, 18 September 2009, "to be heard and indicted," said an attorney in Tahiti, José Thurel.

On Tuesday, 15 September, the office of the Senate refused to rule on a new application for waiver of parliamentary immunity for Mr Flosse, 78 years.

Investigators have yet to find evidence of "corrupt dealings".

Flosse, a former President of French Polynesia, already cited in another investigation into the disappearance of journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud, is suspected of benefiting from 10 years of payments from former officials of the Office des Postes et Télécommunications (OPT ), and the 2H group, responsible for advertising the official phone directory of Polynesia.

. . .

Google news results for Gaston Flosse

Radio New Zealand International

Flosse lawyer says senate position unaffected by Tahiti appeal ...

Radio New Zealand International - ‎2 hours ago‎

A lawyer acting for French Polynesia's veteran politician, Gaston Flosse, has dismissed a Tahiti court ruling that Flosse's parliamentary mandates are to be ...

French Polynesia's former President, Gaston Flosse, appeals conviction Radio New Zealand International

all 3 news articles »

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Radio New Zealand International

French Polynesia's Tahoeraa stunned over Flosse court ruling

Radio New Zealand International - ‎Sep 24, 2009‎

French Polynesia's Tahoeraa Huiraatira Party says it is stunned that the court of appeal has in French Polynesia has declared its leader, Gaston Flosse, ...

Flosse's partner to be taken to French Polynesia jail in OPT probe Radio New Zealand International

Flosse loses French Polynesia appeal case over election night ... Radio New Zealand International

all 3 news articles »

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French Polynesia bans Flosse for one year

Radio Australia News - ‎Sep 25, 2009‎

The French Polynesian appeals court has declared the former president, Gaston Flosse, ineligible to hold office for one year. The judge also upheld a one ...

Radio New Zealand International

Partner of French Polynesia's Flosse detained in Paris

Radio New Zealand International - ‎Sep 23, 2009‎

Investigators have detained for questioning the partner of the French Polynesian veteran politician, Gaston Flosse, amid a flurry of searches and detentions ...

Radio New Zealand International

Investigative judges in French Polynesia set to formally charge Flosse

Radio New Zealand International - ‎Sep 20, 2009‎

Investigative judges in French Polynesia are set to formally charge the veteran politician Gaston Flosse in the middle of next week in connection with what ...

Charges pending for former French Polynesia leader Radio Australia

Former French Polynesian president to be charged Australia Network News

Deferral in French Polynesia's fake employees case Radio New Zealand International

Radio New Zealand International - Radio New Zealand International

all 8 news articles »

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AFP

Flosse interrogated by French Polynesian judges

Radio New Zealand International - ‎Sep 18, 2009‎

Investigators in French Polynesia have detained the veteran politician Gaston Flosse as part of a corruption probe involving the affairs of the OPT ...

French Polynesia leader questioned in graft probe AFP

French Polynesia Leader questioned Radio Australia News

all 12 news articles »

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Radio New Zealand International

French Senate upholds Flosse's immunity in Tahiti corruption probe

Radio New Zealand International - ‎Sep 15, 2009‎

The French Senate has refused to act on a request by the judiciary to lift the parliamentary immunity of French Polynesia's Gaston Flosse, who is suspected ...

Police denied access to French Polynesia's former president Australia Network News

Police question former French Polynesia president Radio Australia News

French Polynesia's Tahoeraa welcomes Flosse immunity decision Radio New Zealand International

Radio New Zealand International - Radio New Zealand International

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Radio New Zealand International

French senate again considers lifting Flosse's immunity

Radio New Zealand International - ‎Sep 9, 2009‎

... leaders will meet on Tuesday to consider a fresh bid to the lift the parliamentary immunity of the French Polynesian veteran politician, Gaston Flosse. ...

Radio New Zealand International

Detention of Flosse secretary continues

Radio New Zealand International - ‎Sep 9, 2009‎

The French Polynesian judicial authorities have again rejected a request to release the personal secretary of the veteran politician, Gaston Flosse. ...

Radio New Zealand International

Flosse lawyer faces Tahiti search as OPT probe deepens

Radio New Zealand International - ‎Sep 10, 2009‎

Investigators in French Polynesia have searched the offices of the lawyer of the territory's veteran politician, Gaston Flosse, whose immunity as French ...

jpk update | vetea guilloux adjournment 29 jan 2010

2009-09-27T17:50:00.001-10:00

. . .

NEWS

On Friday at the Palais de Justice, the Vetea Guilloux affair, deferred from 10 April 2009, was again adjourned, this time to 29 January 2010, without argument against.

The only legal representative at the hearing was for Mr. Quinquis, and said that, therefore, while not appearing on behalf of the other party, an a priori application for adjournment should still be accepted by the courts, even when unopposed.

Again postponed, hearings on this part of the JPK dossier involving Guilloux, with judges deciding on the facts of a case by Vetea Guilloux against others for "false claims" and "wrongful dismissal".

In 2004, he publicly accused fellow GIP operatives Tino Mara and Tutu Manate of having 'disappeared' former Pape'ete editor Jean Pascal Couraud. Vetea Guilloux at first admitted to lying, then retracted his admission.

Sentenced on first appearance, he appealed, but the Supreme Court quashed a decision from the High Court, because the sentence exceeded what the penal code allows for such cases. Relocated to Paris, the second appeal case is forced to wait for instruction from Justice Redonnet, in the main JPK case, before they can continue.

Persisting all this time in his allegations, Vetea Guilloux briefly explained his retraction at the start of the case as being because of a "weight on his shoulders" from the justice system.

Original Google translation >

Friday at the courthouse in Paris, the case Vetea Guilloux, who had been referred to this date April 10 last, was again returned, this time to January 29, 2010 and without argument. The representative of Mr. Quinquis only at the hearing, and therefore not representative of the other party said that a priori, the direction should still be completed.

Examination of this part of the record JPK, where judges will decide on the facts of false accusation and wrongful termination against Vetea Guilloux, has again been postponed. The latter was accused in 2004, former IPTF Tino Manate Mara and Tutu to have removed the journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud. Vetea Guilloux had admitted to lying, then retracted.

Sentenced in immediate appearance, he was again on appeal, but the Court of Cassation quashed the decision of the court of second instance, because the sentence exceeded what the penal code provides for such facts.Relocated to Paris, the second trial on appeal is forced to wait for instructions from the judge in the case Redonnet JPK before they occur. Vetea Guilloux, it persists for all time in his accusations, explaining briefly to have retracted to the top of the case, because of the pressure on his shoulders by the court.

Dr. Binet with RP

Original French >

Affaire Vetea Guilloux : on attendra encore

Justice

Vendredi au palais de justice de Paris, l’affaire Vetea Guilloux, qui avait été renvoyée à cette date le 10 avril dernier, a de nouveau été renvoyée, cette fois au 29 janvier 2010 et sans plaidoirie. La représentante de Me Quinquis, seule à l’audience, et donc sans représentant de l’autre partie, a indiqué qu’a priori, l’instruction devait encore être complétée.

L’examen de ce pan du dossier JPK, sur lequel les juges devront se prononcer sur les faits de dénonciation calomnieuse et dénonciation mensongère contre Vetea Guilloux, a donc une nouvelle fois été reporté. Ce dernier avait accusé, en 2004, les anciens GIP, Tino Mara et Tutu Manate, d’avoir fait disparaître le journaliste Jean- Pascal Couraud. Vetea Guilloux avait admis avoir menti, avant de se rétracter.

Condamné en comparution immédiate, il l’avait de nouveau été en appel, mais la Cour de cassation avait cassé l’arrêt de la juridiction de second degré, au motif que la peine prononcée était supérieure à ce que prévoit le code pénal pour de tels faits. Délocalisé à Paris, le second procès en appel est contraint d’attendre la fin de l’instruction du juge Redonnet dans l’affaire JPK avant d’avoir lieu. Vetea Guilloux, lui, persiste depuis tout ce temps dans ses accusations, expliquant s’être brièvement rétracté au début de l’affaire, à cause de la pression mise sur ses épaules par la justice.

Ph. Binet avec RP

http://www.ladepeche.pf/fenua/faits-divers/6600-affaire-vetea-guilloux--on-attendra-encore.html

papeete publisher blasts back after 1000 euro fine

2009-09-11T17:56:00.001-10:00

. . .

Tahiti Pacifique publisher Alex du Prel was fined 1,000 euros for defaming the public prosecutor of Pape'ete. Tahiti Presse photo

NEWS

Freedom of speech advocates including Reporters Sans Frontiers were dismayed at the decision of a Paris court to fine one of the region's few independent media.

Tahiti Pacifique publisher Alex du Prel had previously defended dozens of claims against him over an 18 year publishing career, but had to employ expensive legal help when the prosecutor applied successfully for the case to be heard 17,000 or so kilometres away in Paris.

He's taking it sitting up. His latest issue offers more exposes of the hidden Flosse years, with spies and surveillance.

tahiti publisher blasts back at flosse

. . .

papeete publisher blasts back after 1000 euro fine

2009-09-11T17:26:00.002-10:00

. . .

Tahiti Pacifique publisher Alex du Prel was fined 1,000 euros for defaming the public prosecutor of Pape'ete. Tahiti Presse photo

NEWS

Freedom of speech advocates including Reporters Sans Frontiers were dismayed at the decision of a Paris court to fine one of the region's few independent media.

He's taking it sitting up. His latest issue offers more exposes of the hidden Flosse years, with spies and surveillance.

tahiti publisher blasts back at flosse

. . .

les barbouzes tahiti - flosse shadow spies

2009-09-11T12:11:00.002-10:00

. . .

COMMENT

Recently fined 1000 euros for defaming a Pape'ete prosecutor, Tahiti Pacifique publisher Alex du Prel has blasted back with a front cover expose of secret dealings during the Flosse years.

The phrase "barbouzes" is slang similar to "spooks" while "filatures, surveillances, enregistrements" refers to shadowing, surveillance and recordings.

September caps a rough few months for the 18 year old magazine, one of the few independents left in the Pacific.

Earlier, a Paris court, 18,000 kilometres from Pape'ete, had found in favour of a complaint from a French prosecutor representing Tahiti. It is one of the few successful attempts at defamation proceedings, du Prel receiving dozens of legal - and illegal - threats over the years.

Their decision came despite earlier decisions by the Consultative Commission on National Defence Secrets to not release three documents from the Directorate General of External Security, French equivalent of the CIA. Seized during a historic raid on DGSE by an investigating justice, the documents first had to be screened by the independent panel for national security considerations.

Without the documents, however, it is impossible to prove whether Tahiti Pacifique was right or wrong. As Reporters Sans Frontiers asks, was "a journalist silenced in order to protect a French politician, or several of them?”

RSF described the fine as "extremely regrettable. Defence secrecy has again been used to prevent the truth from emerging, in this case the truth about a journalist’s murder. We fear the recent progress in the Couraud murder investigation will go no further and that the authorities have decided to bury the case.”

Meantime, there has been a second request to lift the diplomatic immunity held by Flosse as a senator for French Polynesia, following expose of kickbacks from an advertising agency contracted to the Office of Post and Telecommunications.

LINKS

Tahiti Pacifique
RSF

. . .

Papeete prosecutor pushes press case in Paris

2009-05-27T01:06:00.000-10:00

. . .

NEWS

Papeete prosecutor pushes press case in Paris

A cartoon features in a criminal defamation case pursued by French authorities against a long time Tahiti editor and his magazine.

"True justice, like the can-can, only happens in Paris," reads the cartoon, of a justice official pushing court files to the sides, including one marked JPK.

Former Papeete editor, Jean Pascal Couraud, known as JPK, disappeared in 1997 with police marking his dossier "suicide."

JUNE DECISION

Allegations were made in 2004 by a secret agent that, instead of suicide, Couraud had been abducted by secret agents, tortured and killed.

Hearings on 19^th May into the defamation claim relate to a January 2007 cover of Tahiti Pacifique magazine headlined, "Yes, JPK was assassinated."

A decision is due 23 June 2009, reports Rue89.

"SURPRISE WITNESS"

More recently, in April this year, Tahiti Pacifique reported that a "surprise witness" had appeared before the JPK investigating magistrate, Jean-François Redonnet.

Claiming to have seen a white van being used in the 1997 kidnapping of Jean-Pascal Couraud, the witness was quoted as saying the abduction was "of such violence and speed that I was shocked".

Anti-corruption website Bakchich – French for baksheesh or bribery – reported that Tahiti Pacifique editor Alex du Prel pointed widespread allegations of assassination at GIP, a presidential security operation, Groupement d'intervention de la Polynésie.

CRIMINAL DEFAMATION

Pape'ete prosecutor Jean Bianconi lodged the case in the 17^th criminal chamber of Paris superior courts, 17e chambre correctionnelle du Tribunal de grande instance de Paris, said to specialise in press cases.

Naming himself, his deputy and a judge formerly in charge of the JPK case as complainants, Bianconi filed the case in October 2007, some ten months after publication.

The case was filed in Paris "on the sly," claims du Prel in a letter to colleagues on 17 May 2009. Du Prel testified via video link according to Radio New Zealand International with Agence Tahiti Presse reporting damages sought of 5,000 euros for each complainant, for a total of €15,000.

GODFATHER

Like other French media, Tahiti Pacifique extensively reported links between the disappearance of Couraud and allegations of corruption involving former French Polynesian president Gaston Flosse, and former French president Jacques Chirac, godfather to his grandson.

In the January 2007 story, Bianconi is not named but objected to the following paragraph:

"… certainly the image of impartiality of justice in Tahiti, like the police, is rough; disastrous for a functioning democracy. Some judges of the Papeete judiciary also admit a 'tense' and 'low morale at the Palace [of Justice].' Is this because a senior judge might think you invested in a 'divine mission' to orchestrate a scheme (in which some judges agree to participate) to protect by all means the former GIP and its leader, Rere Puputauki, who, if convicted, could endanger the senator Flosse, which in turn could endanger 'the highest levels of the State?' …"

"STAGGERING"

Du Prel criticised the holding of the hearing in Paris, some 16,000 kilometres from his home office in Moorea.

"Imagine the outcry in France if the prosecutor assigned the editor of a Paris magazine before the criminal court in Papeete, on the pretext that three copies would be sold in Tahiti. This is a process used in the past by a vicious few to take revenge against book publishers, never the press."

Defending him, Claire Doubliez sought to supply context by outlining what Rue89 describes as a "staggering array" of cases involving delays to justice in Polynesia.

BEYOND

"The background to this case is the fact that the functioning of the judiciary in Papeete is, obviously, a concern," said Doubliez in a statement to the court.

"I think the case goes beyond the scope of defamation," she said.

"The prosecution held that a single passage was defamatory. For others, this was not the case," said Doubliez , adding it was the professional journalistic duty of Alex du Prel to denounce justice procedures not normal at the time of the article.

"SMOOTH"

In the national assembly in Paris, opposition Socialist parliamentarian René Dosiere attacked the defamation claim when it was lodged last year.

"Justice, in Polynesia, in this case the prosecutor, is much more ready to attack the director of an independent newspaper, Tahiti Pacific Magazine, that continues to denounce fraud and the silence of justice in Polynesia, stressing that justice is smooth for the powerful and hard for the weak. Thus, in Polynesia, most importantly, justice is not to tackle corruption, but those who expose corruption."

Bianconi has been widely linked with former president Jacques Chirac, justice officials well known for openly supporting one political side or another, as is also common in another republican system, America.

MAFIA

French media note that Bianconi came from presiding over an appeal court in Aix-en-Provence, accepting an apparent demotion to the prosecutor's office at a time when Flosse was facing awkward questions over payments to ghost workers.

Bianconi is due to leave Pape'ete next month.

Like many others throughout French foreign services, Bianconi hails from Corsica, an island infamous as the birthplace of the French mafia, operating mostly out of Marseille since the second world war.

"MILIEU"

Similar to the Italian mafia and American secret services during and after the war, numerous media and official investigations have drawn links between the French mafia – or "Milieu" – and the French equivalent of the CIA.

DGSE stands for the Directorate General of External Security. Training of DGSE agents included a base in Corsica.

In 1997, two agents retired several months before JPK disappeared to head the setting up of a surveillance section within the Flosse government, 'retirement' also being a term common among secret services on top secret missions.

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sarkozy tightens screws on search warrants

2009-03-02T00:18:00.002-10:00

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NEWS

The Sarkozy administration has moved to further shut down active investigations in France.

A draft law covering the 2009 – 2014 programme of military spending requires judges to request permission for searches that involve defence secrets, reports Le Monde newspaper.

The bill provides for restricting access to locations “likely to harbour elements covered by the national defence" and "local private companies involved in research or defence".

Currently, judges can go where they want and ask the Advisory Committee on National Defence Secrets (CCSDN) for declassification of documents, decided on a case-by-case basis.

Under the new bill, the Ministry of Defence would issue search warrants.

If the ministry gives the green light, the magistrate must make an appointment with the president of the CCSDN to accompany searches in these places.

The magistrate is obliged under the bill to give written reasons for the search, and the documents sought.

If adopted, this process would remove the element of surprise which judges have now when they move to conduct searches on their own decision, in all places classified.

"This is a new step towards regaining control of judges by political powers," says Laurent Bedouet, Secretary General of the Union of Judges (USM majority).

"The government rolled out the heavy artillery to impede or neutralize the work of some judges who are still able to investigate troublesome cases", said the Union of Magistrates.

According to the union, the bill was “designed in response to investigations that have caused turmoil in the political and military milieu: investigating the Taiwan frigates, a search warrant on the presidency for the Borrel case, and, especially, one for the Clearstream Affair at the headquarters of the DGSE (Directorate General for External Security).”

LINK

Des magistrats s'insurgent contre le projet d'extension du secret-défense . . .

fake letter distracts from chirac no go

2009-02-16T14:56:00.014-10:00

NEWS | BEHIND THE HEADLINES

A French weekly has attacked the credibility of a document at the centre of l’affaire JPK, a four year old investigation into alleged assassination of a former editor from Tahiti.

Journal de Dimanche declared a letter about the asassination of Jean-Pascal Couraud was a “fake.”

Attributed to Vetea Cadousteau, the letter is still undergoing tests for authenticity.

Cadousteau was former spy found dead in 2006, in a shallow valley river during a pig hunting trip. French media reports his body had socks on, but no shoes.

Police from DNIF, the National Directorate of Financial Investigations, found the letter during a September 2008 search at the home of Gaston Flosse, former president of French Polynesia.

The letter was in a drawer of his home office bureau.

“I know that I will be killed for what I know” it reads.

Last month, Flosse said he was lodging defamation suits against local and French media for their reportage of allegations made in the letter about the disappearance of Jean-Couraud, known as JPK.

Allegations link his disappearance with a dossier of documents showing Flosse had enabled payments of millions of dollars to an account held in Japan, in the name of former president of France, Jacques Chirac.

Unsigned, undated, the seven page letter of testimony closely matches evidence given in late 2004 by another former spy, Vetea Guilloux – that Couraud was abducted, beaten, tortured at sea, then dumped into waters some 2,500 metres deep.

According to reports in Journal de Dimanche, that’s because a police officer wrote the letter, not Cadousteau.

An investigative journalist at the Sunday paper, Marie-Christine Tabet said a Tahiti policeman Georges Pater admitted he wrote the letter to put pressure on a former president of French Polynesia, Gaston Flosse.

Described as a “boy of scant enthusiasm”, Officer Pater visited Guilloux in prison on several occasions, asking and reasking questions about alleged assassination of JPK, claims Tabet.

Pater is quoted as telling Guilloux: “I’ve been commissioned by Sarkozy to clean Chiraciens from the whole island,” and that his “testimony on the l’affaire JPK would help.”

So far, Journal de Dimanche is only one of a handful of French media to mention the police officer.

Tabet, for one, appears convinced that Officer Pater is telling the truth, and goes a step further, claiming his evidence is a set-back for a troubled investigation.

“Back to square one, and the poison of doubt”, she wrote.

Ordinarily, that kind of language might be considered a little strange for a journalist covering an investigation yet to make an official finding on the disappearance of a former colleague.

Justice Jean-François Redonnet ordered the seven page letter undergo a second round of testing.

Doubts over the letter and the ability of the examining magistrate to question Chirac are just two of the challenges facing this inquiry.

Real or not, the letter distracts attention from continued refusal by Jacques Chirac, former president of France, to answer questions from an investigatory magistrate looking into the disappearance of JPK.

Through his lawyers, Chirac told another weekly newspaper, Le Carnard Enchaine, that he did not have to answer any questions because presidential immunity still applies to actions taken when he was in office.

This is a variation on an earlier theme, that Chirac enjoyed presidential immunity as long as he was still in office.

Before, lawyers claimed Chirac had presidential immunity from investigation because of his office.

Now Chirac lawyers are arguing that instead of the office holder, it is the presidential acts themselves that are immune from being questioned by magistrates.

Former prime minister Dominique de Villepin was one who did answer questions from Justice Redonnet.

He flatly denied that an investigation initiated from his former office uncovered evidence of a bank account in a Japan bank under the name of Chirac.

"President Chirac has never had a bank account in Japan," he said earlier this month.

Like Chirac, Villepin is no friend of current president, Nicholas Sarkozy, whose administration at first encouraged the JPK inquiry.

Few expected Redonnet to arrive on the doorstep of the French spy agency, DGSE, and request to see top secret documentation. Or to order national fraud police to raid the homes and offices of Flosse and Chirac.

Some suggest an attack of nerves in Paris might be the reason behind a spate of recent moves to cut back balancing powers of other institutions – namely parliament, justice and media.

Sarkozy guilloutined debate in the national assembly. He then overturned 200 years of judicial history by removing investigatory powers from judges.

As if that were not enough, Sarkozy also dismissed an independent panel previously in charge of appointing the head of the country’s state broadcasting services. He then signed an edict banning advertising from state TV, leading to alarm among journalists over a loss of independent revenue and management.

Independence is a long running concern among French journalists.

Journal de Dimanche is an example of this kind of concern, wide ranging controversy starting with a former owner, Robert Hersant, publishing “rabidly” pro-Nazi propaganda during World War II.

In 1988, it was Groupe Hersant that bought the daily paper edited by Couraud, then fired him for a long series of exposes, scoops, comments and criticism against Flosse.

Another such owner is current Journal boss, Serge Dassault, worth some US$10 billion in 2007, ranking 84^th in a Forbes list of billionaires, with extensive links throughout government and the judiciary.

Ten years earlier, in 1998, Dassault had been given a suspended 18 month sentence for bribing Belgium officials with some €4 million to buy arms from his company, prosecutors calling for a €2.2 million fine.

Instead, the Court of Cassassation imposed a mere €60,000 fine – barely three percent of the amount sought by prosecutors.

An arms merchant, Dassault is no believer in freedoms of the press, despite owning dozens of different media organisations; newspapers, radio and television stations.

He explains his approach.

“When I meet the editorial team for the first time on a newspaper that I have just bought, I ask permission from journalists to go have a pee. The second time, I take a piss without asking anyone”.

“The third time,” he pauses, “I piss on them.”

On another occasion, Dassault said that, “If there were no journalists and no book writers, newspaper publishers would be happy people.”

From such background, it might be possible to get an idea of editorial processes that describe a police officer as “boy”, pass judgement on an official inquiry as “poison”, and declare evidence “fake” even before the inquiry does.

Quoting a “special correspondent”, Tabet dismisses the “fiery confession” as it “simply replicates the words of Guilloux.”

The paper also labelled JPK a “ghost”, ahead of an admiring profile on Chirac and his efforts to build an instititution in his own name, aimed at human rights and development in the third world.

Reports of “fake” testimony in the JPK affair come from the same media group as Elle magazine and Paris Match.

Info on the JDD site makes no reference to its much bigger parent, Lagardère Media, referring only to Newsweb, a smaller holding group.

Arnaud Lagardère is another controversial figure, for example selling some 2 billion euros in stock with EADS, the big European Union aviation company, shortly before it released news of costly delays to its huge A380 jumbo liner.

Charges of insider trading are still working their way through appeal courts.

Lagardère is nearly as blunt as Dassault about the independence of his journalists.

“Before establishing if they are independent, journalists would do better to establish if their newspaper is sustainable.”

Newspapers on the left appear only slightly less vulnerable to bias.

Relentlessly criticial of Chirac, a satirical weekly called Bakchich completely ignored claims that the supposed Cadousteau letter is a fake.

Bakchich – French spelling of an Arab word for baksheesh or bribery – mocked the soft approach taken by the Sunday journal with a Chirac headline of its own: “A gentle pappy with a love of money.”

Max Gatti, lawyer for the JPK support committee, said claims of fakery were an attempt to "brainwash" people about the case.

"The only thing that prove the authenticity of the documents are the documents themselves - nothing else," Gatti told local daily, Les Nouvelles de Tahiti.

. . .

flosse says no hasty conclusions

2009-01-31T00:36:00.001-10:00

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NEWS

An undated, hand-written letter outlining the abduction, torture and killing of a former Pape’ete editor was found at the home of a former French Polynesia president.

Police officers found the letter in a drawer during a raid on Flosse’s home in September 2008.

Details of the find only emerged last month.

Gaston Flosse at first refused comment, according to a report from AFP, later issuing a statement labelling the allegations “scandalous.”

Author of the letter is said to be Vetea Cadousteau, a former member of a secret spy cell who died in “very disturbing” circumstances, according to lawyers for a support committee of the editor, Jean-Pascal Couraud.

Handwriting analysis of the letter was “inconclusive”, said laywers James Lau and Max Gatti in a statement for Soutien JPK.

Further testing is needed to confirm the author of the letter of testimony, several pages long.

Lawyers for Flosse, a member of the French senate, dismissed the letter as a “set up”, part of a “plot”.

The letter claims to explain how Jean-Pascal Couraud was abducted, tortured to force him to confess where he had hidden files and how, when he was already half-drowned, a senior member of the DGSE gave orders to drop his body into 2,000 metres of water, tied to several fishing weights.

A few hours after the AFP report, Flosse released a statement to Agence Tahiti Presse from Fakarava, an outer island 432 kilometres north west of Tahiti.

Flosse attacked critics and press for continuing “to speak of kidnapping and murder of Jean-Pascal Couraud when, after more than 10 years since the disappearance of this journalist, nothing has come out to back this up. "

In his statement, Flosse said that he was guilty “merely of receiving an anonymous letter, describing alleged revelations about this case, like Oscar Temaru did in 2004, receiving testimony from Vetea Guilloux.”

Unlike testimony given to the Temaru administration, Flosse has never publicly referred to the letter.

Flosse did not dismiss the new testimony entirely.

“When you know that Vetea Guilloux been sentenced to prison for his testimony, there is no hasty conclusion to be drawn from this document.”

Backing up his warning against hasty conclusions, Flosse said he has “never been questioned by Justice in this case.”

Vetea Guilloux was a member of the same spy cell who, in October 2004, told a minister in the then new Temaru government he had overheard colleagues during a party at Kikiriri resort, drunkenly boasting about killing Couraud.

Today, Gatti said a second death of another Flosse spy allegedly involved in killing Couraud, Firmin Hauata, “goes deep.”

Their statement comes three years after an editorial alluding to the deaths was made by monthly news magazine, Tahiti Pacifique.

Cadousteau drowned in roughly 20 centimetres of water according to a November 2005 report referring to the trained diver as “V.C.” and Hauata as “F.H.”

Hauata died of a heart attack while building hurricane relief housing in Tonga despite being in “good health”, according to the Tahiti Pacifique editorial.

Officers in the raid came from DNIF, Division Nationale des Investigations Financières, French equivalent of a serious fraud office.

DNIF officers are also looking into the Clearstream affair, a huge banking scandal linked with the disappearance of Couraud, known as JPK.

Facing numerous claims of corruption during a 30 year political career, the assassination allegation is by far the most serious for Flosse.

He drew long links between the statement from the JPK support committee and attempts by Paris authorities to undermine his political credibility.

Flosse questioned why “little known” lawyers would raise the names of Cadousteau and Hauata only today when they died four years ago.

Referring to himself in the third person, Flosse said that as “Senator Gaston Flosse plays a decisive role in political reconciliation in French Polynesia, he can only wonder about the values of certain state authorities knowingly manipulating judicial information for the sole purpose of trying to block a political consensus which does not meet with the consent of certain people in Paris.”

“Pure coincidence or deliberate?” he questioned.

“In any event, Gaston Flosse is unable to verify the allegations of counsel because, not being indicted, he does not have access to the file. These statements seem so ridiculous to judicial authorities that Gaston Flosse has never been summonsed.”

In a report headlined, “Letter’s discovery widens mystery around missing French Polynesian journalist” Radio New Zealand International reports that the spy cell in GIP, an emergency response group, Groupe d’Intervention de Polynésie was set up with “tacit knowledge of the French authorities.”

Contrary to French law against domestic surveillance by non-state groups, the GIP surveillance cell eavesdropped and recorded dozens if not hundreds of Flosse foes, friends; even lovers of former Flosse girlfriends.

. . .

home

2009-01-30T23:32:00.003-10:00

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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-Pascal Couraud disappeared holding a dossier of documents some seven centimetres thick, said to involve Clearstream.

JPK's name came up in secret diaries of a French spy during a separate inquiry into Clearstream, still ongoing.

His body has never been found.

Multiple testimonies have emerged regarding his abduction, beating, roping and chaining at sea, before being let go, into waters more than 2,500 metres deep.

. . .

about

2009-01-30T23:20:00.004-10:00

. . .

ABOUT

JPK Update was set up by ANA, avaiki nius agency in November 2005, following a trip to French Polynesia to cover February by-elections.

Then, as now, the site serves as an attempt to cross the language barrier between French and English media coverage of the alleged assassination of former Pape'ete editor, Jean-Pascal Couraud, an investigative journalist.

Known as JPK, the Couraud case is regionally significant in being the first journalist to have dissapeared while on active duty, the first allegedly assassinated.

More about avaiki nius agency.

contact update editor

2009-01-30T23:14:00.002-10:00

. . .

CONTACT

Bloggers, media colleagues and members of the public are welcome to use information and pictures from these pages.

Linking to pictures and pages is welcomed, as is attribution to Avaiki Nius Agency.

For more information, see contacts below.

jason brown
editor
project jpk
tagata pasifika
TVNZ
po box 3819
100 victoria street west
auckland
aotearoa new zealand

email avaiki.nius@gmail.com
mobile +642102484560
phone +6499167058
fax +6499167552

. . .

french journo faces six million euro in claims

2009-01-30T22:51:00.004-10:00

. . .

BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Bailiffs have appeared on his doorstep at home some 200 times, claims the support committee behind France’s leading investigative journalist.

There are some 30 court cases lodged in progress against Denis Robert in what may prove to be one of the biggest banking scandals yet – even after the global economic crisis.

So far, a total of six million euros are being claimed against Robert and various French media who have reported his claims of vast networks of corruption, much of it allegedly linking to the global economic crisis.

Robert has been forced to start selling paintings, tshirts, and to step away from exposes and pen a novel to try and match steadily climbing legal bills.

Most of the claims come from Clearstream, a clearing bank so secretive French judges have publicly denounced it as the “black box of offshore banking.”

Some 500 journalists have scanned in their press cards and sent them into one of a handful of blogs set up to support Robert.

Another 5,300 have signed a petition in support of the investigative journalist.

Such support perhaps explains an astonishing move made by Clearstream – a large ad in Le Monde newspaper last month offering an “amicable” agreement with the author of Revelation$, a 2001 book alleging a secret, secondary banking system involved in global, high-level corruption.

Roberts told French media he had decided to reject the Clearstream offer.

“An impossible offer is impossible”.

Upon reflection and after consultation with his lawyers, Denis declined the "offer" and wrote in a text published Wednesday 29 October by Liberation.

His last post on his old blog, Le domination du monde – Domination of the World – outlines legal threats against him.

Warnings against the chilling effect on freedoms of speech from global banking interests date back to 2006.

“Today after five years of fighting in France and also in Luxembourg, Switzerland and Belgium, Denis Robert can no longer keep up financially.

“A case of a writer and his revelations - annoying for those in power. His last book "Clearstream, the investigation" did not help matters: Clearstream filed new complaints in Luxembourg and France and claiming vertiginous damages on behalf of various interests. The firm also attacks his interviews in the press.

“If we take into account complaints by the Russian bank Menatep, a general bank of Luxembourg, the auditors Barbier-Frinault or that of (former French prime minister) Dominique de Villepin, 31 procedures are underway at this time. None are close to being finally judged as Clearstream and its allies use defamation cases against him and call for judicial review if they are dismissed.

“In total, more than six million euros in damages and accumulated interest are claimed from Denis Robert, his witnesses, the website Arena and its publishers and Julliard Canal Plus which broadcast his films.

“Of 28 judgments, by 1 June 2006, Clearstream and its allies had only 3 euros between them when they had asked for between 100 and 300 000 per claim.”

“We do not want to leave Denis alone.

“That is why we appeal to you to provide practical support for his defense against the juggernaut of Clearstream and its allies.

“In his books and films, he has helped us to better understand the scenes of high finance and means put in place aimed at looting States with financial ‘black boxes” like Clearstream.”

This year, Roberts diversified his Clearstream outputs to include a comic book – or graphic novel as they are more politely known.

“A cartoon like this is the juice (he spells it out, le suc), ten years that are compressed, condensed in a narrative and reflections”, he tells French news site, Mediaslice.

Appearance of a comic book is a rare event among English investigative journalists, but graphic novels are a respected and influential part of life in France.

. . .

tahiti spy letter predicts own murder

2009-01-15T21:31:00.001-10:00

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NEWS

A Tahiti spy wrote he would be murdered to cover up a mafia-style drowning, just off the coast of the capital of French Polynesia.

“I know that I will be killed,” reads a letter, unsigned, undated.

Attributed to Vetea Cadousteau, the letter outlines how he and three other men allegedly assassinated a former Pape’ete editor in 1997.

The body of investigative journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud has never been found.

Cadousteau was discovered dead in a river in 2004.

Widespread speculation year after year links circumstantial evidence about the deaths to a vast banking scandal, Clearstream, well known among French media audiences, almost unknown in English circles, involving a dossier said to have been hidden by Couraud at his family home.

Yesterday’s edition of Le Monde published quotes from the letter about the killing of the investigative journalist, Jean-Pascal Couraud, known as JPK.

Initial analysis of the hand written letter returned inconclusively.

Follow up tests to authenticate the author of the letter have been ordered by an examining magistrate, the third judge to head the JPK case.

Justice Jean-Paul Redonnet also ordered medical records from the inquest into the death of Cadousteau, an expert diver, his body found slumped in 20 centimetres of water.

A respected, centre-right daily in Paris, Le Monde published police notes from an interrogation of French senator Gaston Flosse. The purported spy “letter of testimony” was uplifted from a desk drawer, during a September 2008 police search of his home.

Details from the search, by police officers from DNIF, the National Directorate of Financial Investigations, only came to light over New Year holidays.

After the search, police interrogated Flosse.

He admitted getting the letter about the killing of Couraud, raised in Polynesia from the age of five, but told police he found it “crazy.”

Police asked Flosee why he had not forwarded the letter to Justice officials.

Explaining indirectly, he claimed if there was “any real story I would have got rid of this document ."

French media allude to comments made “in the heat of the moment” by Flosse.

Later quotes are said to vary.

This month’s issue of independent monthly Tahiti Pacifique compares comments from the police record of the Flosse home interrogation against later quotes from interviews with local media.

Tahiti Pacifique describes a “change in versions.”

Allegations of assassination of JPK first emerged in late 2004.

Flosse always denies any role in alleged assassination of Couraud.

Inquest notes quoted by Le Monde diagnose the Cadousteau death as being "consistent with heavy blows to the head."

. . .

Correction: "2007" search of Gaston Flosse a typo mistake, updated to "2008".

jpk lawyers name agents in “very disturbing” deaths

2008-12-29T22:07:00.000-10:00

An undated, hand-written letter outlining the abduction, torture and killing of a former Pape’ete editor was found at the home of a former French Polynesia president.

Police officers found the letter in a drawer during a raid on Flosse’s home in September 2008.

News of the find only emerged today.

Gaston Flosse at first refused comment, according to a report from AFP, later issuing a statement labelling the allegations “scandalous.”

Author of the letter is said to be Vetea Cadousteau, a former member of a secret spy cell who died in “very disturbing” circumstances, according to lawyers for a support committee of the editor, Jean-Pascal Couraud.

Handwriting analysis of the letter was “inconclusive”, said laywers James Lau and Max Gatti in a statement for Soutien JPK.

Further testing is needed to confirm the author of the letter of testimony, several pages long.

Lawyers for Flosse, a member of the French senate, dismissed the letter as a “set up”, part of a “plot”.

The letter claims to explain how Jean-Pascal Couraud was abducted, tortured to force him to confess where he had hidden files and how, when he was already half-drowned, a senior member of the DGSE gave orders to drop his body into 2,000 metres of water, tied to several fishing weights.

A few hours after the AFP report, Flosse released a statement to Agence Tahiti Presse from Fakarava, an outer island 432 kilometres north west of Tahiti.

Flosse attacked critics and press for continuing “to speak of kidnapping and murder of Jean-Pascal Couraud when, after more than 10 years since the disappearance of this journalist, nothing has come out to back this up. "

In his statement, Flosse said that he was guilty “merely of receiving an anonymous letter, describing alleged revelations about this case, like Oscar Temaru did in 2004, receiving testimony from Vetea Guilloux.”

Unlike testimony given to the Temaru administration, Flosse has never publicly referred to the letter.

Flosse backed away from dismissing the claims entirely.

“When you know that Vetea Guilloux been sentenced to prison for his testimony, there is no hasty conclusion to be drawn from this document.”

Backing up his warning against hasty conclusions, Flosse said he has “never been questioned by Justice in this case.”

Vetea Guilloux was a member of the same spy cell who, in October 2004, told a minister in the then new Temaru government he had overheard colleagues during a party at Kikiriri resort, drunkenly boasting about killing Couraud.

Today, Gatti said a second death of another Flosse spy allegedly involved in killing Couraud, Firmin Hauata, “goes deep.”

Their statement comes three years after an editorial alluding to the deaths was made by monthly news magazine, Tahiti Pacifique.

Cadousteau drowned in roughly 20 centimetres of water according to a November 2005 report referring to the trained diver as “V.C.” and Hauata as “F.H.”

Hauata died of a heart attack while building hurricane relief housing in Tonga despite being in “good health”, according to the Tahiti Pacifique editorial.

Officers in the raid came from DNIF, Division Nationale des Investigations Financières, French equivalent of a serious fraud squad.

DNIF officers are also looking into the Clearstream affair, a huge banking scandal linked with the disappearance of Couraud, known as JPK.

Facing numerous claims of corruption during a 30 year political career, the assassination allegation is by far the most serious for Flosse.

He drew long links between the statement from the JPK support committee and attempts by Paris authorities to undermine his political credibility.

Flosse questioned why “little known” lawyers would raise the names of Cadousteau and Hauata only today when they died four years ago.

Referring to himself in the third person, Flosse said that as “Senator Gaston Flosse plays a decisive role in political reconciliation in French Polynesia, he can only wonder about the values of certain state authorities knowingly manipulating judicial information for the sole purpose of trying to block a political consensus which does not meet with the consent of certain people in Paris.”

“Pure coincidence or deliberate?” he questioned.

“In any event, Gaston Flosse is unable to verify the allegations of counsel because, not being indicted, he does not have access to the file. These statements seem so ridiculous to judicial authorities that Gaston Flosse has never been summonsed.”

In a report headlined, “Letter’s discovery widens mystery around missing French Polynesian journalist” Radio New Zealand International reports that the spy cell in GIP, an emergency response group, Groupe d’Intervention de Polynésie was set up with “tacit knowledge of the French authorities.”

Contrary to French law against domestic surveillance by non-state groups, the GIP surveillance cell eavesdropped and recorded dozens if not hundreds of Flosse foes, friends; even lovers of former Flosse girlfriends.

One piece of testimony differs significantly from earlier accounts.

Guilloux testified that he had heard the agents talking about tying four concrete blocks to the half-drowned body of Couraud.

However according to today’s statement from the JPK committee lawyers, Couraud was tied to fishing weights.

. . .

french security advisers hold back 14 documents

2008-12-20T00:28:00.000-10:00

. . .

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, 15^th 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.

. . .

more chirac papers released in affair JPK

2008-12-19T23:51:00.001-10:00

earlier coverage: exposing bank accounts in japan, belonging to former french president, jacques chirac, and former french polynesian president, gaston flosse.
. . .

NEWS RELEASE

A national security commission in Paris approved declassification of 11 documents last Friday, opening new links between an alleged assassination of a former Pape’ete editor with ex-president Jacques Chirac.

It is the second dossier of top secret papers to emerge from two judicial inquiries exploring growing links.

Of 26, two further papers were recommended for partially declassification by La Commission consultative du secret de la défense nationale (CCSDN), a powerful advisory commission overseeing judicial inquiries and other requests for release of national defense secrets.

Commission members recommended 13 documents not be approved for declassification.

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.

No details were reported on 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 this month, with 27 recommended for declassification, 14 staying top secret and two partially declassified.

The CCSDN never releases documents itself.

First, a minister must release their decision, and then the documents go, in this case, to judicial inquiry, and documents do not necessarily get published with findings, months or years later.

. . .

silence marks jpk anniverary

2008-12-18T04:56:00.002-10:00

...

EDITORIAL

A family falls silent.
An anniversary passes.
Eleven years, to be sure.
No press releases.
No conference statements.
No email alerts.
Still, no trace, Jean-Pascal Couraud.
An investigation, yes.
Four years old.
For a man not forty.
Family falls silent, crestfallen, facing, full force, the French state.
Freemasons, far frontiers, financial flows, fundamental flaws, fundamentalists.
No foreigner.
Nor freelancers sans frontiers.
Now, just silence.
Six months, no more.
Surf.
Curving onto reef, close; shhhhhh, ukulele, hymn, prayer.
Frangipani tree, memory, brothers once three.
No bottles, none smashed.
Silence, volumes, dawning daze, subprime reality, la force de frappe, sans frontières.
France.
Flapping tricolour, rainbow reviewed, eternally.
Fairly, not really, a frogmen follow-up from mercy dash,
Federated states of micronesia, jelly
Fish babies.
For sure.
A photographer, globally mourned.
An editor, forgotten.
Albion.

...

Clearstream Wins Defamation Award Appeal Over French Journalist

2008-11-02T16:59:00.001-10:00

Clearstream Wins Defamation Award Appeal Over French Journalist

By Heather Smith

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Clearstream International SA, the financial-settlement company owned by Deutsche Boerse AG, won 1,500 euros ($2,000) in damages from a French journalist in its appeal of an earlier 1-euro defamation award.

The Paris court of appeals ruled that reporter Denis Robert and his publisher Les Arenes, or Canal Plus, the pay-TV unit of Vivendi SA that ran a documentary in 2001 featuring Robert's reports, erred when they claimed that Clearstream's numbered accounts facilitated illegal activities, according to a statement from Clearstream.

Clearstream's goal ``has been to establish the truth about its activities and to defend its honesty,'' said Clearstream Chairman Andre Roelants in the statement. The appeals court's decision to increase the damages ``accomplishes that.''

An appeals court in Brussels last month fined Canal Plus Belgique 1 euro in a libel case over the same documentary.

A spokesman for Canal Plus and Larence Corona, a spokeswoman for Les Arenes, declined to comment on today's ruling. Robert's lawyer didn't immediately return a call for comment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Heather Smith in Paris at hsmith26@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 16, 2008 13:18 EDT

. . .

french defence minister to rule on secret files

2008-10-20T10:54:00.001-10:00

. . .

NEWS

PARIS (Oceania Flash/Pacific Media Watch):

Most of the files seized as part of recent investigations in French Polynesia could be made available to a judge based in Pape'ete who is currently investigating possible links between this French Pacific territory and former French President Jacques Chirac, as well as alleged bank accounts in Japan, French media reported at the weekend.

The files, seized since June this year in the French Polynesian capital Pape'ete, belong to the French secret service, the DGSE.

They have since remained inaccessible because they were classified as "secret defence" information.

Pape'ete-based judge Jean-François Redonnet, who ordered the searches, had asked permission to use these files.

Ruling on the issue, a consultative commission on national defence secret files, decided that of the 17 files, 16 should be declassified.

The decision was published in the French Republic's official gazette last week.

However, the final ruling is yet to be delivered by the French Defence Minister.

Since June this year and more recently, late September, metropolitan France's financial police have conducted a series of raids in French Polynesia, where the team is currently investigating a series of cases, including one involving former President Gaston Flosse.

As part of one of its later searches, on September 24, the squad (from the National Division of Financial investigations, DNIF) raided Flosse's home.

The investigations also included a controversial case into the mysterious disappearance of local journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud (nicknamed "JPK") in December 1997, when Flosse was President of French Polynesia.

Couraud's family have since repeatedly alleged that JPK had been assassinated by members of a so-called "intervention group", the GIP, which Flosse set up a few years earlier.

Couraud was investigating possible links between Flosse and then French President Jacques Chirac and information that he could have unveiled on a secret bank account located in Japan.

The investigators "were obviously looking for information that could back-up the theory that the journalist's disappearance was linked to information he could have held to give credit to the existence of former President of the Republic (Chirac)'s "Japanese account'", fed by Gaston Flosse's party, Tahoeraa Huiraatira stated at the time in a release.

Tahoeraa Huiraatira offices were also searched.

"The inspectors have found nothing at the residence of the Senator (Flosse) that could give credit to this theory … (Flosse) reaffirms that he has nothing to do in the disappearance of the former journalist… French judiciary have favoured for several years the suicide or voluntary disappearance of JPK, and then a new inquest has been launched, as a result of a politically-motivated manipulation", the release says.

Couraud's disappearance was first treated as a suicide, but since last year, a change of magistrate in charge of the inquest has reactivated the murder theory.

The new approach was based on revelations made by a former GIP member, Vetea Guilloux, who explained Couraud had first been kidnapped, then tortured and eventually drowned in waters somewhere between the main island of Tahiti and neighbouring Moorea Island.

Guilloux, however, has since withdrawn his earlier statements.

Couraud's body was never found.

Flosse has just been re-elected as one of French Polynesia's two members of the French Senate, despite the open disapproval from French ruling party, the UMP which, this year, had decided to back current President Gaston Tong Sang and a former member of the French National Assembly, Béatrice Vernaudon.

Radio investigative programme rewarded

One of the more recent investigative reports carried out on the "JPK" case, a feature documentary by French national radio France Inter, was at the weekend awarded the International Investigation Award by the Paris-based French Journalist Training Centre (CFJ).

The audio documentary, entitled Sharks in Troubled Waters/A counter-investigation on the JPK case, was conducted by French Journalist Benoît Colombat and was aired first late last year as part of the France Inter programme Interception.

There have since been attempts coming from French Polynesia to ban the broadcasting of the documentary.

Sharks in Troubled Waters, which was first aired mid-December 2007, will be broadcast again on November 2, France Inter announced at the weekend.

Comment on this item http://www.pacificmediacentre.blogspot.com/

. . .

l'affaire jpk - 30 year overview

2008-07-09T18:43:00.002-10:00

The JPK affair involves a lone journalist in French
Polynesia, and his family, fighting against the full
power of the republic.

...

Who killed JPK?

a 30 year overview of the
JPK affair, from 1967, when
Jean-Pascal was a boy

by avaiki nius agency editor
jason brown

15th December 1997

Surveillance agents, trained by French spies, lash nylon rope through concrete blocks, four of them, to the body of Jean-Pascal Couraud, investigative journalist. His blood ebbs onto the afterdeck of the motorboat, rocking languidly in open ocean swells. Full moon night, open ocean between two islands. Mo'orea and Tahiti. Shark night.

1967

Jean-Pascal, six, holds up a small fish, orange.

Francette kneels, raises the family camera from it's neck strap, captures the boy, the fish, a first, a lagoon vista sweeping behind him. There are no mushroom clouds near Mo'orea.

In time, the blond French boy eyes a looming reef curl, board underarm. Local Maohi nearby pose a question: come surfing with us?

1977

Jean-Pascal releases the shutter on a battered SLR.

Like happy bees, teenagers swarm into another pose, laughing at socio-politico innuendo from the young man with the camera at warm winter afternoon, a quiver of surfboards sunk into the sand, pointing skywards. Most of the youth are local Maohi, telling Jean-Pascal their stories, he lives their life.

An off-duty journalist surveys the scene, popping the cap off another bottle of Hinano beer, portable radio blaring. 'Son of a teacher couple, I think. You know, part of the build up to the bomb, everything arriving from France …'

1987

JPK times his exit perfectly.

Sauntering down court steps, he remains just a few unforgiveable steps ahead of the personal and executive space of President Gaston Flosse. Emerging, grimly, from a rare courtroom defeat.

JPK wears an impish smirk, a trademark, a virtuoso visage worthy of his Kennedyesque by-line, the one he uses when at his editor's chair, in the territory's biggest daily newspaper. Flashes flash, a black and white exposure destined for screening across next day's front page of Les Nouvelles.

1997

A motorboat slows, idles, off Tahiti. A languidly calm and warm December night, rising full moon reflecting off gently rolling swells.

Four blocks are lashed to the battered, voiding body of the former Pape'ete editor, sacked by new owners.

Jean-Pascal Couraud is hefted, swung and tossed in one team motion, body dipping slightly, weighted feet angling towards oily smooth swells, some 3,000 metres deep.

2007

Waves curl in cleanly, close to the west coast of Tahiti, broken mid-vista by a robust frangipani tree, surroundings scattered thickly with headstones.

There is no grave. Thugs smashed beer bottles and broke a wooden plaque. In their place, a square of coral stones, whitewashed and garlanded with fresh gardenia. A simple newspaper ad promises simple ceremony, marking ten years since the full moon night Jean-Pascal disappeared. It is 15th December 2007.

The family do not cry. They read a poem, pause for prayers and hymns from Maohi parishioners, renew memories, pronounce themselves blessed, joke, hug the few faces that still crumple with dismay. A brother answers a question about surfing. "He was a goofy-foot," says Olivier.

TODAY

New French President, Nicholas Sarkozy, has a gorgeous minister of Justice, Racthida Dati. She is on record giving firm assurance to the Couraud family that her ministry would treat the investigation with utmost thoroughness.

Later, President Sarkozy promulgates new law requiring journalists to reveal their sources to courts of inquiry. He also takes steps to regain cabinet control of an appointment process for the head of French public broadcasting, following a series of damaging documentaries about JPK.

PROJECT JPK

Founded online in 2004, Avaiki Nius Agency began Project JPK as its first in-depth investigation on 15th December 2005, a year after an agent of presidential security went public with allegations of assassination.

Three outputs from this project have been planned.

This blog is the first, with a documentary and fiction and non-fiction versions of a book planned for the next 12 to 24 months, all utilising web2 tools to spur media and public interest. ANA acknowledges months of assistance from Tagata Pasifika at TVNZ, and the Pacific Media Centre at AUT.

BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Growing numbers of French journalists are reporting on l'affaire JPK, slowly uncovering links to one bank, Clearstream, and an even bigger scandal.

Strangely, neither JPK or, even stranger, Clearstream feature large in English media.

Clearstream stands accused of hiding false assets as big as the entire US subprime meltdown, with secret bank accounts for a select 33,000 identities, a bank allegedly at the secret heart of geopolitical corruption and centuries-old financial power. This is not a théorie de la conspiration, or conspiracy theory, coming from a former vice president of the bank itself. A resultant book, Revelation$, co-authored with a French journalist, Denis Robert, saw other senior bank officials lose their jobs.

So far, however, authorities have not charged anyone with anything, apart from Robert, on defamation claims.

...

review slams "undignified, unworthy" acts

2008-06-29T18:56:00.005-10:00

jean-pascal couraud, above

TV REVIEW

Death in the tropics

Presented by Elise Lucet. An inquiry by Magali Serre and Christian Gaudin (France, 2008). 105 minutes.

In 1997, Tahitian journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud, by-lined JPK, disappeared under troubling circumstances. Suicide? At first, the family take this hypothesis on board, before revelations in 2004 by a certain Vetea Guilloux lead them to lodge a complaint for murder and complicity.

Investigative journalist and opposition politicians aimed at Gaston Flosse (then president of Polynesia), JPK investigating a number of sensitive dossiers of local and metropolitan authorities, addressing issues including patronage, fictitious jobs and embezzlement.

He was therefore closely monitored by GIP, the Intervention Group of Polynesia, assimilated as a section under the presidency, a service employing Vetea Guilloux.

If they fail to precisely identify those truly responsible for the death of Jean-Pascal Couraud, numerous documents and testimony gathered by Magali Serre and Christian Gaudin shed light on a flood of undignified administrative practices, judicial and political acts unworthy of a republican democracy, irrespective of the territory in which they occur.

by Sophie Bourdais

Télérama, Saturday, June 28, 2008

translated by avaiki nius agency

LINKS

pacific media centre - flosse sues
france 3 - a death in the tropics (french)
france 3 - a death in the tropics - tv review

tahiti judge astonishes paris elite

2008-06-24T21:28:00.005-10:00

president gaston flosse in 2003, during a visit to
french polynesia by jacques chirac

NEWS

Officials from a Japanese bank claim to have found "no evidence" of an account held for former French president Jacques Chirac.

The claim is made in one of seventeen documents seized by an investigatory magistrate from Pape'ete, Jean-François Redonnet, according to French media reports.

Redonnet astonished Paris circles when he arrived from Tahiti with search warrants for the offices of the DGSE, Directorate General of External Security, a French equivalent of America's Central Intelligence Agency.

'A LITTLE JUDGE'

One site, Lalettrea, headlined its coverage - Le petit juge qui grandit subitement - "A little judge suddenly grows up."

Reporting on the search, another site, Le Point, quotes sources as saying the "atmosphere was relaxed" as the judge settled in at a meeting room of the DGSE on Mortier boulevard.

The next day, Redonnet also served a warrant at the offices of Jean Veil, lawyer for Jacques Chirac.

TARTS

Under the headline, "Tartlets for the judge" - Le Journal de Dimanche - the Sunday Journal - described the judge's mission to Paris as being "without precedence."

Accompanied by prosecutor Jean Bianconi and two policemen, Justice Redonnet had to wait three hours at the offices of Jean Veil, as he was in court.

But once the laywer for Jacques Chirac did arrive, he delivered an equally civil reception, offering "tartlets" and sandwiches - "very courteous."

'NO EVIDENCE'

News there was "no evidence" of a Chirac account at the former Tokyo Sawa Bank was widely reported in French media. At least, no evidence, so far.

Tokyo Star Bank since 2001, officials claimed they only have access to accounts as far back as 1999 - nearly two years after JPK disappeared.

Most French media overlooked this date. The bank officials also added there was no way to tell if an account was set up for Chirac under a 'shell' name.

SEALED

Judge Redonnet was held back from using the bank letter and other documents as they are still sealed under national security laws.

A judge from another jurisdiction, of liberty and detention, decided on the bank letter, saying it had already been made public in January with its publication by Le Point.

"Seizure of documents ... is necessary to reveal the truth when they would likely help determine whether a theory of political motivation, namely the desire to eliminate a journalist who had knowledge of the existence, in a Japanese bank, of a bank account opened on behalf of Jacques Chirac, or not, based on objective factors, " judge Brigette Delpech wrote in her decision.

RETRACTION

Completing his Paris mission, Judge Redonnet interviewed General Philippe Rondot.

An intelligence specialist, he conducted a search in 2001 for the account, at the request of the Elysée. Five years later, in March 2006 before justices investigating the Clearstream affair, he said that an account for Jacques Chirac existed at the Tokyo Sowa Bank and was credited 300 million francs to 1996, allegedly via cultural foundation.

General Rondot later retracted his remarks, saying the account did not exist, a claim he repeated for the Tahiti judge.

PRESS STIFLED

One news site operating under the safety of "satire" described the judge's journeys as an example of an official investigation stifled by the press.

Bakchich reported how the "venerable" news group, Agence France Press, held off from reporting the latest news about the investigation until late afternoon, after other sites had been carrying the news all day. Just five "laconic" lines featured in the AFP report, reflecting a country where the most daring comments from so-called satire sites, and journalists face heavy fines, even prison, even when reporting facts.

Then, in May, the Sarkozy government introduced a bill that would require journalists to reveal their sources when "a pressing imperative requires it" - wording that unions described as too vague.

LINKS

judge seizes documents from french spy agency
french parliament splits on journalism bill
lawyer's office searched in case of missing french polynesian journalist

MORE

jpk doco - flosse to sue for defamation

2008-06-24T20:03:00.004-10:00

tahitipresse carries news of the flosse defamation claim

NEWS

translated from Tahitipresse, France 3

French senator Gaston Flosse says he will lay a claim of defamation against a documentary on France 3 TV accusing him of “the most abominable acts” relating to the disappearance in 1997 of journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud.

Broadcast in France on June 20 and rebroadcast in French Polynesia on June 22, the Tempo programme “Pieces of Evidence” focused on alleged graft by former French president Jacques Chirac, involving bank accounts in Japan.

Titled “Death in the Tropics” the documentary also focused on the role played by Flosse, alleging links with the disappearance of Couraud, by-lined JPK.

"This programme, specifically slanted, violates the basic principles of any democracy,” said Senator Flosse in a press release, carried by Tahiti Press Agency.

"I am indeed accused of the most abominable acts without being able to respond because despite the age of the criminal investigations and diligence by special magistrates in charge of these cases, I've never been called in judicially for questioning.”

"This situation also reflects the lack of credit given by Justice to evidence from these ‘canaries’ implying also that neither I nor my lawyer, have access to the file of instruction.

"The imbalance of the programme is therefore obvious and deplorable, since I cannot answer what was presented as evidence.

"Moreover, one can question the aims pursued by journalists since several reports were unrelated to the purpose of the programme but tended towards the object of ‘smearing’ me.”

"We even witnessed the sad spectacle of a ‘courageous’ judge - face hidden and voice disguised - settle his account with a prosecutor of the republic.

"This programme features only lies and falsehoods against me, without the slightest respect for ethics or codes of ethics. I can only claim jurisdiction for an action of defamation."

The statement from Flosse was the first in nearly three years on the JPK affair.

His accusation of journalism with a “particular orientation” plays on an accusation from France 3’s Tempo magazine that justice in French Polynesia is nuanced in a “particular manner.”

In their cover webpage, reporters Magali Serre and Christian Gaudin give background to the case.

“Despite reports from the Court of Auditors, despite the scandals, strange disappearances, the money evaporates, nothing changes, and nobody worries.”

LINKS

Flosse to sue - Tahitipresse
Death in the tropics - France 3

former jpk lawyer searched

2008-01-06T19:10:00.000-10:00

a photocopy sign for a meeting of the support committee for missing journalist, jean-pascal couraud.

NEWS

Police in French Polynesia have seized documents from the offices and home of the former lawyer for long missing journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud.

The search was ordered by prosecutor Jean Bianconi after Jean-Dominique Des Arcis was questioned by investigating magistrate Jean-François Redonnet.

Radio New Zealand International reports Des Arcis was questioned two days after the tenth anniversary of the disappearance of Couraud for making conflicting statements.

RADIO EXPOSE

The search was the first fallout from a controversial expose carried by France Inter, the second most popular radio station in France, according to a report from Rue 89, a French language news website.

Among others, France Inter interviewed Des Arcis who, for the first time, declared that he did not think the disappeareance of "JPK" was suicide - contradicting earlier statements.

The family had previously declared that the lawyer had been scared off by authorities from representing JPK, a claim the lawyer had not responded to in the last three years.

BACKGROUND

At the time thought to have been a case of suicide, the disappearance of JPK is now being linked to the world's biggest banking scandal.

Clearstream was first exposed in 2001 by a French journalist and the third in charge of the clearing house - a kind of bank for banks - and wide ranging allegations including US$1.5 trillion in overstated assets.

The president of the time was sacked and rules were changed, but so far the only prosecutions have been for libel - by the Clearstream whistleblower.

PERSONAL NOTES

News of the new JPK evidence at the hearing and the subsequent request for a search of the former lawyer emerged in an update from the family of Couraud, adding more fuel to the Clearstream fire.

The family said documents seized include personal notes made by Des Arcis from the time of his representation of Couruad, as well as working papers and correspondence from the family.

The family update as follows, translated from French:

"CLARIFY"

"A search of Jean-Dominique Des Arcis

"The lawyer for Jean-Pascal Couraud was questioned by the judge Redonnet on the morning of Monday, December 17, 2007 to get him to clarify his statements relating to sensitive information held by Jean-Pascal Couraud and that could be the cause of his disappearance.

"Following that hearing, a search was conducted at the request of the prosecutor Jean Bianconi at both houses of the lawyer in Papeete and Raiatea, as well as at his offices to search for documents evoked by counsel that could concern financial movements for the benefit of Jacques Chirac.

"Among the seized documents also are personal notes on the case by the lawyer , correspondence with the family of JPK and working papers he possessed concerning the ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Jean-Pascal Couraud."

poem for jpk - the shattered mirror

2007-12-19T18:13:00.000-10:00

TRIBUTE

by jason brown, editor, avaiki nius agency

It was, as promised, a small and simple ceremony.

Gathered around an empty grave, tombstone in place, friends of the Couraud family, about 20 in all.

"This is the time he was ..."

The mother of Jean-Pascal Couraud pauses, searching her French memory for the right word in English.

Kidnapped?

"Yes, kidnapped," agrees his mother, stepping across the syllables carefully, like a goat on a mountain, fearful not of the plunge, but of forgetting to be careful.

"... the time he was kidnapped at this very hour, exactly ten years ago."

She peers upwards as she speaks, a small women for such enormous memories, shadows of frangipani falling across her shoulders, children surfing on even smaller waves in the background.

As happens so often in all our lives, she begins to say more but is distracted by a comforting hand.

Did he surf here too?

JPK's brother glances across his brother's empty grave, past other tombs, and whitewashed stones of the deceased less famous, to where the waves roll in; Mo'orea, sister island to Tahiti, looming hazy in the distance.

"Yes, but only when the waves were bigger."

He smiles, and like their smiles of welcome, their teeth are white, in tanned faces of rude health, somewhat disturbing for those unprepared for civility not grief, for warmth not sadness and loss in a place of such fragrant loveliness.

Earlier, a tribute is read out from a colleague, an original editorial from 1988 by JPK titled "Never again" and a peom by Jacques Prévert, a sardonic, punning poet taught to generations of French schoolchildren.

The shattered mirror is a pun in itself, defiance in the face of vandals who, earlier this year, drank and smashed their bottles on what little JPK has left in this world, oblivious to themselves, or how their actions reflect on us all.

No eternal flame, just small wickering candles, for a young man with an adopted acronym, Kennedyesque, in nature, doomed by real politik.

It was, as promised in the pages of the newspaper that sacked him more than a decade ago, a small and simple ceremony.

Le miroir brisé

Le petit homme qui chantait sans cesse
le petit homme qui dansait dans ma tête
le petit homme de la jeunesse
a cassé son lacet de soulier
et toutes les baraques de la fête
tout d'un coup se sont écroulées
et dans le silence de cette fête
j'ai entendu ta voix heureuse
ta voix déchirée et fragile
enfantine et désolée
venant de loin et qui m'appelait
et j'ai mis ma main sur mon coeur
où remuaient
ensanglantés
les septs éclats de glace de ton rire étoilé.

The shattered mirror

The little man who sang ceaselessly
The little man who danced in my head
The little man of youth
Undid his shoe lace
And all the shacks of the feast
All of a sudden collapsed
And in the silence of this feast
I heard your happy voice
Your voice torn and fragile
Childish and sorry
Coming from afar, he who called me
And I put my hands on my heart
Where they trembled
Bleeding
From the seven ice chips of your starry laugh

Jacques Prévert

tribute to jpk - lucien maillard

2007-12-19T17:42:00.000-10:00

lucien maillard, a former colleague to JPK, pays tribute, saying he never imagined their work could lead to his death.

TRIBUTE

After grief, after anger and outrage, in time comes meditation.

The time for prayer.

A prayer of communion with the parents of Jean-Pascal, his children, his brothers, his sister, his friends, present or missing.

I am thinking particularly of the late Patrick Brai, a valiant companion of a beautiful collective adventure - what must be called journalism at its most noble - including Jean-Pascal who was both its soul and radiant symbol.

Some, to achieve their ideals of loyalty, travel to the Orient or take the pilgrimage to Compostela.

We need to move closer to Jean-Pascal - because it is with him, I know! - to keep us with him, to listen, to remain faithful to our ethical commitments, not to betray the word of honour that he has bequeathed to us.

We have had the privilege of meeting an exceptional person. Absolute in his quest for truth and honesty, in his tireless fight against lies, against corruption, and yet so delicate, so attentive to others in his daily work.

A head above others, Jean-Pascal almost danced through his daily work. He walked lightly upon the earth but did not lose his footing, did not raise his voice and calmed conflicts with an even temperament, one that I attributed, stupidly, to his past-time of surfing, his being a master of the waves.
I quickly understood that this natural elegance was an expression of a strong soul. I never saw a young man assemble as many gifts for the profession he had chosen: the eye of the photographer, a solid talent for writing, beautiful, consistent - in form and in substance - which banishes redundancy, affected style or emphasis, but that cultivated accuracy and brevity in the interests of truth.

Only in our professional relations were we so intense! We divided the roles tacitly, without having to explain anything to each other. I was aware that we shared, outside the awareness of the reporters and owners of the newspaper, a unique experience; perilous, but which constituted the major act of a lifetime.

I did not think that it could lead to the death of Jean-Pascal. A layoff, a forced exile is in the nature of things. But his killing … was to imagine the intolerable!

In everyday life, in my work as a teacher and journalist, I live every day for ten years in the shadow of someone I knew during those years in Tahiti. I became more accomplished, more demanding of myself. This week, I spoke at length about the quiet bravery of Jean-Pascal to my students in political science, whom I quote as a model, as an example.

I do not doubt that, one day, we will see a school of journalism given in his name for its promotion. I try, through all my business and personal initiatives to be worthy of the confidence Jean-Pascal showed in me for nearly twenty-five years.

That confidence was a grace and, with it, a resource. The powerful friendship that we wore accompanies us all.

He still shines.

Lucien Maillard

never again - jpk editorial from 1988

2007-12-18T12:56:00.000-10:00

"never again" - a hard hitting editorial against the "calamitous reign of Gaston Flosse."

TRIBUTE

Reaching back nearly two decades, a former colleague of Jean-Pascal Couraud has typed out an editorial from his most infamous edition.

Headlined "Never again", the front page editorial was part of a "special edition" with a self-proclaimed "bias" towards "derision", collecting stories and cartoons from the "calamitous reign of Gaston Flosse."

The issues were seized by authorities in Tahiti after Flosse laid an injunction against the newspaper. Interviewed on television, Couraud thanked Flosse for the "free publicity."

"NEVER AGAIN!

"The weather in Polynesia does not have the same consistency as elsewhere: it is only a succession of moments, one after another, ad infinitum, blending in a kind of eternity with no beginning and no end.

"That is why events are like successive images of a movie on a cinema screen, leaving behind no trace and few souvenirs.

"If the inhabitants of these islands seem to have an insouciance that makes them sometimes appear like big children, it is because they have an extraordinary ability to forget. But maturity is born from experience stored in memory.

"Our ability to forget is in the political arena, a handicap for democracy and a danger to the freedoms in our country.

"It seems that the most painful feelings, born of frustration or humiliation, may diminish day by day until they disappear, but what is written remains noticed. The great strength of writing is in its printing in black and white, freezing fluctuating currencies and setting to paper facts and events, relaying the memory of men's failures.

"Les Nouvelles" reveals this day after day, tirelessly denouncing the most outrageous abuses of the system. Our readers would never suspect the threats and pressures exerted on the owner, the management and journalists of this newspaper in an attempt to silence them.

"Our pride is in having successfully resisted.

"We adopted (in this special issue) a bias towards derision by choosing stories and cartoons that show the central character and his henchmen at their most petty, in the hope that these ludicrous men and situations exorcise the spectre of dictatorship and its attendant hatreds, humiliation, violence and injustice.

"May this edition serve as a memorial to stupidity, greed and political ambition, reviving memories of the still recent past, so that no one forgets! Our dearest wish is that in closing the last page of this special edition of News, each reader should take the resolution "NEVER, NEVER AGAIN."

Jean-Pascal Couraud - April 1988

france radio broadcasts JPK "interception"

2007-12-17T18:13:00.000-10:00

france inter radio has broadcast fresh evidence on the JPK affair.

UPDATE

Second most popular radio station in the republic, France Inter has released a major investigation into the JPK Affair on the tenth anniversary of the disappearance of the former Pape'ete editor.

Titled "Sharks in troubled waters - a counter-investigation into the JPK Affair" the programme sees fresh testimony from witnesses connected to the affair.

Following below is a translation taken from the introductory webpage.

"Sunday, December 16, 2007

"Sharks in troubled waters - a counter-investigation into the JPK
Affair

"10 years ago, during the night of 15 to 16 December 1997, the investigative journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud disappeared in mysterious circumstances in French Polynesia.

"Under his byline JPK, Jean-Pascal Couraud denounced political, economic, and judicial scandals and abuses of power by Gaston Flosse, leader of French Polynesia for almost 30 years, protected by Jacques Chirac since the 70's.

"Officially, JPK committed suicide by drowning, after absorption of a drug.

"His body has never been found.

"In October 2004, a former member of the security service of Gaston Flosse relaunched the case. The man attests to having witnessed the abduction of JPK, and identified the perpetrators of his death.

"The thugs allegedly tried to extort information from the journalist on files in his possession concerning Gaston Flosse.
"JPK's family then filed a complaint for "assassination".

"Since then, however, the judiciary seems to find it hard to let the truth emerge.

"Today, 'Interception' brings new pieces of evidence to the JPK Affair.

"For the first time, Jean-Dominique Desarcis, the former lawyer Jean-Pascal Couraud, talks publicly.

"He reveals threats against him, and reveals what "sensitive" records JPK held shortly before his death: arms trafficking, financing of the RPR*, alleged payments from a businessman in Polynesia to Jacques Chirac, in liasion with Gaston Flosse… in Japan!

"The former No. 2 GIP (Intervention Group of Polynesia, a service under orders from Gaston Flosse) Sandy Guilloux, tells how one of his subordinates confessed to having been present at the death of JPK.

"A report by Benedict Collombat, sound by: Alain Fauchet."

* Rally for the Republic, Le Rassemblement pour la République (RPR), the main right-wing party of France.

IN FRENCH

Des requins en eaux troubles - contre-enquête sur l’affaire JPK

reporters without borders see fresh hope for JPK

2007-12-15T14:59:00.000-10:00

PRESS RELEASE > reporters sans frontieres

15 December 2007

The tenth anniversary of the disappearance of Jean-Pascal Couraud: Reporters Without Borders calls on the authorities not to betray the hopes of his family
A few days before the tenth anniversary of the disappearance of the former editor of the Les Nouvelles in Tahiti, Jean-Pascal Couraud ( "JPK"), on December 15, 2007, Reporters Without Borders calls on the French authorities including the Justice minister, known as the the Keeper of Judicial Seals, Rachida Dati, to renew their commitment to establishing the truth about the exact circumstances of the death of the journalist.

"Recent events allow us to believe that the investigation into the death of Jean-Pascal Couraud could move forward on a sound basis. Ten years after the fact, it is urgent, both from a moral and legal viewpoint, that the ins and outs of this case be brought out into the open. We call on French justice not to provide arguments to those who believe that French Polynesia is an area of exception where scandals are king. On the contrary, we expect that the hopes of JPK's family and those of members of his support committee are confirmed by transparent ruling, without setting aside the self-evident legal route," said Reporters Without Borders.

"Jean-Pascal Couraud concerned, among other things, the supposed transfer of funds to a Japanese bank account, through a Polynesian account, in favor of the former President of the Republic, Jacques Chirac. Sensitivity of this information and the tragic loss of JPK makes even more compelling the discovery of the truth in this matter," said the organization.

The year 2007 enabled progress.

In September, civil claimants were finally able to obtain a copy of the legal file, including interviews reinforcing their belief that the journalist was assassinated. On November 20, they obtained satisfaction at trial chambers, Papeete, on two points: the deposit of papers from the file seized at the home of General Rondot, in the context of the Clearstream scandal, linking back to the Japanese account of the former President of the Republic, and, the dismissal of Judge Philippe Stelmach, previously in charge of the case.

According to the lawyer for the civil parties, Max Gatti, the discovery of two documents found on the hard drive of General Rondot relating to an account belonging to Gaston Flosse proves the documents were as controversial as JPK claimed.

In May 2007, the journalist's former lawyer, Jean-Dominique Des Arcis, confirmed that JPK had specific information on the transferral of funds between a large company in French Polynesia and an account held by Jacques Chirac.

The lawyer will be heard by the court on December 17.

Civil parties were authorised by the court in French Polynesia to verify whether it is possible to establish a link between the documents and their complaint for "assassination and conspiracy" in 2004.

Judge Stelmach, who had asked to be withdrawn from the case on many occasions, and, had informed the civil parties of its desire to close the case in July 2007, was replaced by Judge Jean Redonnet.

Finally, after requests by the family and the support committee in June and September, the Keeper of Judicial Seals, Justice minister Rachida Dati, assured in mid-November that "directors of criminal cases had taken up the file and that it would be studied with the greatest attention. "

In November 2007, the public prosecutor issued a dismissal of indictment, without waiting for a decision from the trial chamber in Papeete. It is urgent that the claimants quickly present their version of the case and its supporting elements to the judge. It is also essential that the material facts from the Clearstream scandal be transmitted as soon as possible.

JPK disappeared on December 15, 1997, and his body has never been found. In October 2002, the Papeete court concluded suicide and pronounced the case closed. In 2004, the investigation was reopened after testimony from a former member of the Groupe d'Intervention de la Polynesia (GIP, personal services of the former president of French Polynesia Gaston Flosse). Vetea Guilloux said that he had witnessed the assassination of Jean-Couraud Couraud perpetrated by members of the GIP, before recanting his statements. In December, the family of journalist filed "complaint against X", whereby a civil party to "murder" and "complicity".

Reporters Without Borders supports their search for truth.

On December 16, 2007, from 9 to 10 am, France Inter broadcast on the show "Interception" a story by Benedict Collombat devoted to the disappearance of Jean-Pascal Couraud called "Sharks in troubled waters - against an inaquiry into l'affair JPK."

LINKS

Reporters sans frontières - We mustn’t forget them!

Google JPK

EN FRANCAIS

Dixième anniversaire de la disparition de Jean-Pascal Couraud

Google JPK

french media giants focus on jpk

2007-12-08T14:32:00.000-10:00

NEWS RELEASE

Two French media giants are marking the tenth anniversary of the disappearance of former Pape'ete editor, Jean-Pascal Couraud, with independent investigations.

Second most popular in French radio, France Inter and leading daily newspaper Le Monde are both set to release indepth reports into allegations of assassination. Reportage seems sure to increase pressure on authorities previously foot dragging their way through official inquiries, now in their third year.

Couraud disappeared nearly one decade ago, on Monday night of 15th December 1997.

MAFIA

Initial findings of suicide remained unchallenged until October 2004.

Vetea Guilloux, a presidential security agent, told the administration of Oscar Temaru, then new, about widespread espionage activities in his surveillance section. Including, allegedly, overhearing colleagues boast about the mafia-style drowning of the investigative journalist - known by his byline "JPK".

Like Watergate, L'Affair JPK is becoming known for the crime as much as the coverup.

WHISTLEBLOWER

Low level inquiries attracted extraordinary resistance from inside the justice system. The original investigatory magistrate was sidelined by corruption allegations appearing out of nowhere; a replacement was appointed direct from Paris.

The new magistrate toyed coyly for two years before publicly declaring his desire to be relieved of the file, while privately instructing a commissioner of police to stop accepting any more evidence relating to Jean-Pascal Couraud.

Far from stopping, the inquiry has slowed down only to envelope an astonishingly large affair at the world's largest clearing bank, Clearstream. Similar to Enron - but one thousand times bigger, at roughly 1.5 trillion euros - Clearstream I and II emerged in 2001 when a former bank executive turned whistleblower.

MASONRY

As might be understood, official inquiries into Clearstream proceed slowly. Links with JPK emerged earlier this year, when a satirical newspaper, The Blue Dog, published copies of accounts of a bank in Japan with US $70 million in the names of Jacques Chirac and Gaston Flosse.

The papers were matched with those found in a dossier of documents collected privately by a former general of French secret services, regarding Clearstream, and 33,000 secret bank accounts run out of the clearing house under a secondary banking system.

From a small if deadly scandal on the far frontiers of the free French, L'Affair JPK has unexpectedly grown big enough to cause at least a few cracks in presidential masonry.

CONDEMNS

Not least because of the election of a former Chirac protege, Nicholas Sarkozy, now fairly bitter foes.

New president Nicholas Sarkozy marked a visit to Algiers this week by saying he "condemns" corruption during administration of the former French colony, directly attacking the record of once revered leaders who annointed Chirac.

In Tahiti, the renewed presidency of Oscar Temaru expressed hope Sarkozy would recognise similar circumstances when he visits French Polynesia next year.

MERRY-GO-ROUND

There are signs he will.

In Paris, justice officials defied an aura of high-level immunity claimed for Chirac, charging him on 21st November 2007 with embezzlement over 20 fake jobs he gave out when he was mayor of the city.

Not so much a case of fresh independence of the French magistrates, perhaps, as a case of anti-Chirac officials finally getting their turn on the judicial merry-go-round.

SMALL STUFF

News today will only reinforce that impression.

An appeal court in Paris has confirmed similar findings against Flosse and a folder of fake jobs worth EU 2.5 million - after corruption complaints laid in 2004 by the new Temaru government.
A few fake jobs might not seem a big deal, especially against a background of seemingly enormous scandal but like mafia investigators in the United States, sometimes you have to go with the small stuff; tax evasion, not assassination.

FAT CAT

Attention from Le Monde and France Inter may yet prompt progress towards a different outcome.

Just how far remains doubtful.

After all, behind the scandals lies Paris, at the heart of European 'diplomacy' for centuries, a global centre for secret societies stretching back into mists of history. And, like Chirac, Sarkozy has fat cat friends of his own.

SEE ALSO:

communique from the jpk support committee
committee welcomes new rulings on l'affair JPK
jpk support committee: pursue legal action
soutienjpk comite l'instruction doit se poursuivre...
candy flosse solution
a tahiti, le "compte japonais" invoqué dans une ...
clearstream fallout goes galactic
clearstream dwarfs enron
tahiti link to trillion dollar fraud clearstream
letter to justice minister grabs French media
letter from jpk committee
magazine takes aim at new president
brother of dead journalist sacked on st. valentine
jpk witnesses die "strange" deaths
justice officials block inquiry say family
radio new zealand international affair JPK
transcript of tf1 doco on jpk
exposing jpk founding editorial

ALSO AVAIKI NIUS AGENCY

avaiki: tahiti publisher: " i do not even have a tie "

communiqué du comité de soutien "JPK"

2007-12-08T14:20:00.000-10:00

Papeete, le 5 décembre 2007

A tous les amis, membres et sympathisants du Comité de soutien,

Tenue de notre assemblée générale annuelle

Tous les membres et sympathisants du Comité de soutien sont cordialement invités à notre assemblée générale annuelle qui se tiendra le mardi 11 décembre 2007 à 17h30 à l'hôtel Shératon de Faaa afin de délibérer sur les points ci-dessous inscrits à l'ordre du jour :
1. Situation et contenu du dossier d'enquête
2. Examen des comptes de l'association
3. Renouvellement du bureau
4. Questions diverses

Rendez-vous avec la presse

A tous nos amis résidant en France, nous rappelons la diffusion sur France Inter de l'émission « Interception » réalisée par Benoît Collombat, le dimanche 16 décembre à 9h10 heure française.

France Inter étant retransmis en direct sur RFO Polynésie toutes les nuits (à partir de 22h00 le samedi), cette émission pourra être également écoutée le samedi 15 décembre à 22 heures 10 en Polynésie française, jour du dixième anniversaire de la disparition de Jean-Pascal Couraud.
Compte tenu des rencontres interviews qu'a pu faire Benoît Collombat tout au long de la réalisation de ce reportage, celui-ci devrait présenter un intérêt tout particulier et il est possible qu'il obtienne des retombées importantes dans d'autres media français.

Enfin, un journaliste d'investigation du journal « Le Monde » avec qui nous étions en relation depuis plusieurs mois arrivera en Polynésie dans quelques jours et effectuera à cette occasion un reportage sur la disparition de Jean-Pascal et l'enquête en cours. Il est prévu qu'il soit présent à notre assemblée générale du 11 décembre.

Vous remerciant de votre soutien à tous,

Philippe Couraud

communique from the jpk support committee

2007-12-08T14:16:00.000-10:00

COMMUNIQUE soutienjpk.org

Papeete, December 5, 2007

To all the friends, members and supporters of the Support Committee,

Hosting of our AGM

All members and sympathisers of the Support Committee are cordially invited to our annual general meeting to be held Tuesday, December 11, 2007 at 17:30 at the Hotel Sheraton in Fa'aa to deliberate on the following items listed on the agenda :

1. Situation report and contents in the inquiry dossier.
2. Examination of accounts of the association
3. Renewal of office bearers
4. Other business

Rendevouz with the Press

To all our friends residing in France, we remind you of the dissemination on France Inter radio of the programme "Interception" by Benedict Collombat, Sunday, December 16th at 9:10am French time.

France Inter being broadcast live on RFO Polynesia every night (from 22:00 Saturday), the program can also be heard Saturday, Dec. 15 at 22:10am in French Polynesia, day of the tenth anniversary of the death of Jean-Pascal Couraud.

Based on interviews done by Benoît Collombat throughout realization of his report, it should portray particular interests, and it is possible it will attract significant spin-offs in other French media.

Finally, an investigative journalist of the newspaper "Le Monde" with whom we were in close relations for several months, in Polynesia, arrives back in a few days and will conduct on this occasion a story on the disappearance of Jean-Pascal and ongoing investigations. He is scheduled to be present at our general meeting on 11 December.

Thank you for all your support

Philippe Couraud

committee welcomes new rulings on l'affair JPK

2007-11-27T16:21:00.000-10:00

Court rulings favour continuation of an investigation into the disappearance of a former Pape'ete journalist nearly ten years ago - with promises from the still new Sarkozy government to look into the details, reports Tahitipresse.

NEWS

from Tahiti Press Agency

JPK Affair: Support Committee welcomes decisions from the Chamber of Instruction

(Tahitipresse) - The Support Committee for the search for the truth about the disappearance of Jean-Pascal Couraud "welcomes, in a statement, two recent decisions by the Chamber of Investigation, in Papeete, in the case of the disappearance of journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud, in December 1997."

The first decision concerns, according to the support committee, "the assent of the Chamber of Instruction to ensure that records are kept of the material seized from General Rondot (i.e., in connection with the Clearstream affair, in metropolitan France) referring to Japanese bank accounts (i.e., assumed to belong to the former President of the Republic, Jacques Chirac). "

The committee also referred to a second decision of the Chamber of Investigation that "relates to the withdrawal of Judge Stelmach, and the appointment of another judge to pursue investigations into this matter." According to the committee, "it has become too obvious that the investigation was not conducted with complete objectivity." They added that they now hoped "to talk fairly quickly with the new judge about the merits of the case".

Minister of Justice and Radio France-Inter

Furthermore, in response to a letter from the mother of Jean-Pascal Couraud sent to Rachida Dati, Minister of Justice, in late June, the Chief of Cabinet, in continued support of the committee, "informs us that careful examination of the case is under way by the Director of Criminal Cases and Pardons."

In addition, the radio program "Intercept", which airs on December 16 this year, in metropolitan France on radio France-Inter, will be devoted to the JPK affair. It should also be broadcast on the evening of December 15 in Tahiti, on RFO-radio, on the day of the tenth anniversary of the disappearance of Jean-Pascal Couraud.

jpk support committee: pursue legal action

2007-10-24T01:08:00.000-10:00

Philippe Couraud, above, heads a support committee for missing journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud - today hoping for a decision on their appeal against the closing off of evidence in an official investigation into allegations of assassination. An English translation of an update sent to members of the JPK support committee, features below.
....................................................................................................

Papeete, October 19, 2007

To all the friends, members and supporters of the Support Committee:

Evidence already collected shows that the investigation should be pursued

As indicated in our last release in September 2007, we have seen in recent weeks that investigatory judge, Philippe Stelmach, proposes to close off evidence for the State case. As we expected, a reading of the investigation file shows quite the opposite is very necessary: to continue the investigation. Principal elements underpinning such a finding are as follows:

1 - Many contradictions and falsehoods among some close to Jean Pascal Couraud, specifically on his movements on his last evening, going home: these came to light during police interviews in early 2007 needing further investigation that will likely provide useful input to the truth.

2 - Existence of a dozen witnesses who confirm either partially, or totally, the statements of Vetea Guilloux, including precise testimony from a policeman.

3 – Statements from the lawyer for Jean-Pascal Couraud referring to a possible motive for assassination. These statements must be considered in relation with an update that monitoring and surveillance were carried out on the person of Jean-Pascal Couraud at the time of his disappearance, by members of an espionage cell in the marine administration, led by officers from the DGSE, working for the President of the government of French Polynesia.

Our request for transmission of documents seized from General Rondot discussed on October 23, 2007 before investigatory courts.

Indeed, our demand for the transmission of a dossier of documents seized from General RONDOT, relating to the Japanese bank account of Jacques Chirac, a factor that could have been motive for an interrogation of Jean-Pascal by the administrative flotilla, has been refused. We have appealed against this refusal to the Court of Investigation, which will examine our request at a hearing scheduled on October 23, 2007.

In addition to the presentation of all the elements that make up such a demand, we also requested the Court of Investigation to seize the file itself so that it will lead the investigation to our initial complaint. In fact, the investigation file clearly shows that judge Stelmach failed to order appropriate follow-up to various components of the investigation file that support the hypothesis of an assassination. He himself had also asked to be relieved of this case in November 2006.

The interest of the media and the support of an eminent person

We note the growing interest of the national press in this affair as the reality of the assassination and its motive evidently translating from a reading of the investigation file. Thus, after France Inter and its programme "Rendezvous with X" aired in September, some newspapers providing an announcement of their intention to give first real importance to this issue in coming weeks.

We also noted, as revealed in "Le Point," that magistrates dealing with contents of the file in the courts of Papeete have indicated to some journalists, under cover of anonymity, of their conviction that this is assassination.

Finally, in early October 2007, the mother of Jean-Pascal Couraud had a meeting with one of the most respected personalities in the legal community. Apart from comfort afforded, the claimants have been confirmed as to the appropriateness of certain steps already undertaken.

Thank you for all your support,

Philippe Couraud

Please feel free to comment using the following addresses: contact@soutienjpk.org

ORIGINAL FRENCH

soutienjpk comite l'instruction doit se poursuivre

2007-10-22T23:12:00.000-10:00

COMMITTEE UPDATE

Soutien JPK released the following update earlier today, carried below in French.

Papeete, le 19 octobre 2007

A tous les amis, membres et sympathisants du Comité de soutien,

Les éléments déjà recueillis montrent que l’enquête doit être poursuivie

Comme indiqué dans notre dernier communiqué du mois de septembre 2007, nous avons pris connaissance ces dernières semaines du dossier d’enquête que le juge d’instruction Philippe Stelmach se propose de clore en l’état. Comme nous nous y attendions, la lecture du dossier d’instruction montre bien au contraire la réelle nécessité de poursuivre l’enquête. Les principaux éléments sur lesquels se fonde un tel constat sont les suivants :

1- Les nombreuses contradictions et mensonges avérés de certains proches de Jean-Pascal Couraud sur le déroulement précis de la dernière soirée passée à son domicile : leur mise en évidence lors des gardes à vue réalisées en début d’année 2007 nécessite de nouvelles investigations susceptibles fournir des éléments utiles à la manifestation de la vérité.

2- L’existence d’une dizaine de témoins, qui viennent confirmer partiellement ou totalement, les déclarations de Vetea Guilloux, dont un témoignage précis provenant d’un gendarme.

3- Les déclarations de l’avocat de Jean-Pascal Couraud qui mentionne un mobile possible pour un assassinat ; ces déclarations doivent être examinées en relation avec la mise à jour de la surveillance et de la filature qui étaient réalisées sur la personne de Jean-Pascal Couraud au moment de sa disparition, par les membres de la cellule d’espionnage de la flottille administrative, dirigée par des agents issus de la DGSE, travaillant pour la Présidence du gouvernement de la Polynésie française.

Notre demande de transmission des pièces saisies chez le général Rondot examinée le 23 octobre 2007 devant la chambre de l’instruction

En effet, la demande de transmission dans notre dossier des pièces saisies chez le général RONDOT se rapportant au compte japonais de Jacques Chirac, élément qui aurait pu constituer le mobile d’un interrogatoire de Jean-Pascal par la flottille administrative, nous a été refusé. Nous avons fait appel de ce refus devant la Chambre de l’instruction, qui examinera donc notre demande lors d’une audience fixée le 23 octobre 2007.

Outre la présentation de tous les éléments qui justifient une telle demande, nous demanderons également à la Chambre de l’instruction qu’elle se saisisse du dossier afin qu’elle conduise elle-même l’instruction de notre plainte initiale. En effet, le dossier d’enquête montre clairement que le juge Stelmach n’a pas donné la suite qui convient aux divers éléments du dossier d’enquête qui confortent l’hypothèse d’un assassinat. Il avait par ailleurs lui-même demandé à être déchargé de ce dossier en novembre 2006.

L’intérêt des media et le soutien d’une haute personnalité

Nous avons relevé l’intérêt grandissant de la presse nationale pour cette affaire au fur et à mesure que la réalité de l’assassinat et son mobile transparaissent de manière évidente à la lecture du dossier d’enquête. Ainsi, après France inter et son émission « Rendez-vous avec X » diffusée au mois de septembre, certains quotidiens de tout premier plan ont annoncé leur intention de donner une réelle importance à ce dossier dans les semaines qui viennent.

On note par ailleurs, comme l’a révélé « Le Point » que des magistrats ayant eu à connaître le contenu du dossier au sein du tribunal de Papeete, ont fait part à certains journalistes sous le couvert de l’anonymat de leur conviction quant à cet assassinat.

Enfin, au début du mois d’octobre 2007, la mère de Jean-Pascal Couraud a eu un entretien avec une des personnalités les plus respectées du milieu judiciaire. Outre le réconfort apporté, la partie civile a été confortée quant à la justesse de certaines démarches d’ores et déjà engagées.

Vous remerciant de votre soutien à tous,

Philippe Couraud

Pour tout commentaire utiliser l'adresse de réponse suivante: contact@soutienjpk.org

candy flosse solution

2007-08-23T16:58:00.000-10:00

30 SECONDS EDITORIAL

Long time French Polynesian hard ass Gaston Flosse has turned, as Americans might say, candy ass.

After 30 years of warning against the 'miseries' of independence, the former president has withdrawn support from his successor, suggested a unity government with arch foe Oscar Temaru, and given a nod for discussions on a referendum in 2028.

On independence. In doing so, Flosse has thrown down a gauntlet - I am far from finished yet. Political moves over the last month or so have shown bold initiative missing from all sides in this part of the Polynesian triangle.

a tahiti, le "compte japonais" invoqué dans une sombre histoire | rue89

2007-08-22T02:22:00.000-10:00

FOLLOW UP

Who killed JPK? Rue89 reports links between Couraud's
disappearance and bank accounts held in Japan by the
same politicians he was exposing.

Judicial efforts in Tahiti towards investigating allegations of assassination of a former Pape'ete editor continue to stagger on.

Latest news out of the French territory indicates that an investigating magistrate has declared there are no more witnesses to be heard regarding the disappearance of Jean-Pascal Couraud, on 15th December 1997.

Meantime, a French language news site gives the connections between Couraud and documents he was carrying at the time of his alleged kidnapping by French-trained security agents.

A Tahiti, le "compte japonais" invoqué dans une sombre histoire | Rue89

Translation to come shortly : other links

clearstream dwarfs enron
tahiti link to trillion dollar fraud
letter to justice minister grabs French media
letter from jpk committee
clearstream fallout goes galactic

clearstream fallout goes galactic

2007-07-19T08:10:00.000-10:00

Boasting global links, Clearstream
could spell disaster for galactic
space hopes if us$1.5 trillion in
assets are really in question

NEWS

In this age of million and billion dollar scandals it is difficult to absorb the size and scale of the us$1.5 trillion Clearstream affair.

Seemingly random figures attached to shorthand words for long lines of zeros.

Perhaps one way standing back and gauging Clearstream is from outer space. The Space Review warns international efforts to get rockets above the air will be badly affected.

clearstream dwarfs enron
tahiti link to trillion dollar fraud
letter to justice minister grabs French media
letter from jpk committee

where it started

2001: clearstream executive spills 1.5 trillion beans

clearstream dwarfs enron

2007-07-19T07:54:00.000-10:00

NEWS

How does the European Clearstream affair compare with the much better known Enron collapse in America?

Like peanuts and elephants. A French justice is pursuing allegations against Clearstream including doubts that us$6.5 trillion in assets is being overstated by $1.5 trillion.

By comparison, Enron involved just $16 billion in undeclared debts. Global trade is roughly $50 trillion annually.

tahiti link to trillion dollar fraud

2007-07-19T07:45:00.000-10:00

NEWS

Papers held by journalist Jean Pascal Couraud in his 1997 kidnapping and murder may be linked to an emerging scandal involving us$1.5 trillion in fraud.

The Clearstream scandal is the world's biggest yet. Clearstream is the world's biggest clearing bank, verifying 70 per cent of foreign payments between banks.

The same afternoon he disappeared, Couraud was seen holding a dossier seven centimetres thick. Just a few papers show former presidents Gaston Flosse and Jacques Chirac with US$70 billion in a Japan bank, now being linked to Clearstream fraud.

letter to justice minister grabs French media

2007-07-14T00:21:00.000-10:00

NEWS

French media are widely reporting a letter to the minister of Justice in France from the family of former Pape'ete editor Jean-Pascal Couraud.

Sent in late June, the letter raises the JPK affair to a new level in French national affairs.

No word yet on any response from the minister, but increasingly pointed commentary draws clear links between Couraud's allegations of suicide are being overtaken by detailed claims from all sorts of sources.

What follows is one such story.

Close relations of Jean-Pascal Couraud, an investigative journalist who “committed suicide” in mysterious circumstances in 1997, in Tahiti, claimed today that his death is “most probably” related to the “Chirac bank account in

Japan

.”

They have written to Justice minister Rachida Dati.

In this letter, they lay stress, on all syllables, on a possible link between the disappearance of the journalist and the investigations which he then carried out, concerning “financial transfers from French Polynesia to Japan, for the profit of Jacques Chirac.”

“The lawyer who worked with Jean-Pascal Couraud at the time of his disappearance revealed to us that in 1997, they both laid out very significant information relating to financial transfers from French Polynesia to Japan, for the profit of Jacques Chirac,” reads the letter

“This lawyer even claims to have been the subject of pressures on him, so much so that he had carefully considered ceasing any work on this affair.

But Jean-Pascal Couraud was known to be unstoppable; he intended to use this information and make it known.”

On the spot, some gendarmes suspect the family of seeking to draw attention of authorities to a file which risks ending in withdrawal, with no formal proof of murder, however probable, being found.

Secret agents of Gaston Flosse implicated

At 37 years of age, Jean-Pascal Couraud disappeared on the night of 15^th-16^th December, 1997.

Former editor of the daily newspaper Les Nouvelles, he was in close relations with Boris Léontieff, an opponent of Gaston Flosse, a mainstay of the island, a friend of Chirac and always a senator.

After the death of Couraud, who signed his articles “JPK”, a suicide theory seemed to take hold. He was not at all well, and even his family was not astonished.

But in October 2004, a man named Vetea Guilloux, former member of the Intervention Group of of Polynesia (GIP), a security service of the Polynesian Presidency, makes an explosive statement (see it video).

One evening during a drinking session, he claims in writing to gendarmes, two members of the GIP boasted about their murder of Couraud.

He had been tortured, then drowned outside of Papeete.

Interrogated, Vetea Guilloux, reconsiders his claims.

This reconsideration translates into an appearance in front of a correctional court a few days later, an almost immediate appearance, where he gets a twelve months prison sentence, with three months without parole for libellous denunciation.

The family of the journalist then creates a committee to support reopening of the investigation, and start researching the truth behind the disappearance of Jean-Pascal Couraud.

Very recently, the committee claims to have collected new evidence including a lawyer who confesses to the brother of the missing man.

“Spontaneous statements from various people close to the centre of the GIP confirm to us, sometimes in a very precise manner, the reality of his assassination by a team from the GIP”, committee founders write in their letter to Rachida Dati.

Fear, however, prevents these witnesses “from going to the end with their statements”.

Philippe Couraud, brother of JPK, tells news site Rue89 that he has gained admissions last February from a lawyer friendly with his brother.

He was a lawyer engaged against Flosse, who continues to exert influence in Tahiti.

“During ten years, this lawyer had consolidated theories of a suicide involving Jean-Pascal.

“But there, spontaneously, in my office, he started to speak to me about this affair.”

He told him how, with Jean-Pascal Couraud, they had taken note of considerable transfers from a prosperous and highly respected pearl culturing company to a Japanese account whose holder was, it is believed, Jacques Chirac.

The lawyer was followed, burglarized.

Somebody in Paris could have warned him: “It all stops here, or you die.”

He then decided to keep his distance.

But JPK continued.

Dumped in water with breeze blocks attached to the feet

Today, Philippe Couraud suspects an interrogation which went badly.

“They obviously sought a document. They would have shown zeal to look good with their superiors.”

The GIP of Flosse had close links with the DGSE, which followed closely, in 1997, the case of the Japanese account, as testified by documents recently seized within the framework of the Clearstream affair.

According to accounts collected by the brothers of JPK, in particular that of HT, the journalist was thrown into water between Tahiti and Moorea, with concrete breeze blocks attached to his feet.

One of the witnesses said that once an unconscious “inanimate JPK was brought back up, an order would have been given to release the body.”

Herve Gaymard: Clearstream business “abracadabraesque”

Former minister for the Economy, Herve Gaymard, on Friday described the Clearstream affair and a hunt by Dominique de Villepin for answers as “abracadabraesque”.

“That really does not interest me” but “everyone follows this affair like a television serial or a comic strip”, Herve Gaymard commented on LCI.

“All that should not divert us from the real problems of France today”.

“If the expression had not been already employed, I would say that all this is ‘abracadabraesque’”, said the former minister, forced to resign over another affair concerning work conducted by the State on an apartment.

“In particular I want to make the comment that in this Clearstream business, nobody understands anything”, even though “this is two, three years that they speak to us about this subject”, complained the UMP deputy for Savoy.

letter from jpk committee

2007-07-02T03:31:00.000-10:00

OPEN LETTER

The following letter was sent from the JPK Support Committee at 17:29, dated 2nd July 2007, concerning an ongoing inquiry into the alleged assassination of former Pape'ete editor Jean Pascal Couraud.

Original French has been translated, fairly roughly, into English by avaiki news agency.

---------------------------------------------

June 26, 2007

For all our friends and sympathizers of the committee of support, a progress report on the case.

Attached:

Letter dated June 20, 2007
Minister of Justice Article Liberation of June 25, 2007

According to our sources, gendarmes have finished their investigations relating to the letter of inquiry with which they had been charged, and are about to pass the whole case to the examining magistrate.

The lawyer which worked with Jean-Pascal Couraud at the time of his disappearance has just lodged our application.

The examining magistrate could then propose instruction from any time now seeking quick closure, so the whole investigation file can be placed at the disposal of civil courts.

Without being able to establish formal evidence of an assassination, the fact is that investigators highlighted the reality behind claims about people exposed by Vetea Guilloux, as was shown through carrying out hearings.

In these statements, made by various people and various ex-convicts, the authors of these facts explain, sometimes in a detailed way, the crime which they committed upon the person of Jean-Pascal Couraud.

We await passing on of the case in order to determine if new hearings might be required. We still continue to collect declarations of people, ex-employees of the GIP, in various circumstances having heard or been told the history of this assassination in a way detailed by the authors themselves.

In addition, according to the national press (see the article of Liberation attached), documents seized within the framework of the Clearstream affair confirms that the existence of a Japanese account held by Chirac was well followed, very closely, by the DGSE since 1997.

Thus, the statements made by the lawyer of Jean-Pascal Couraud, indicating a direct or indirect implication of agents or ex-agents of the DGSE in the disappearance of Jean-Pascal Couraud, could prove to be exact.

It is thus useful to recall that the persons in charge of the teams in charge of monitoring and espionage within the ex-GIP, were themselves of ex-agents of the DGSE. This was recently heard by the examining magistrate our application.

In this context, according to the advice of our lawyer, it appeared convenient to us at this stage of the case to address ourselves directly to the new Minister of Justice in order to sensitize him on the very particular character of this affair, and on the strong need for justice and truth tested by numerous Polynesians.

A copy of this mail is sent for you as attached. Thanking you for your support,

Very cordially,

Philippe Couraud

---------------------------------------------

ORIGINAL VERSION

Following is a text only version of the original email, in French.

---------------------------------------------

26 juin 2007

A tous nos amis et sympathisants du comité de soutien,

Etat d’avancement du dossier

Pièces jointes : Lettre à Garde des sceaux en date du 20 juin 2007

Article Libération du 25 juin 2007

Selon nos sources, les gendarmes auraient terminé leurs investigations liées à la commission rogatoire dont ils avaient été saisie et seraient sur le point de transmettre l’ensemble du dossier au juge d’instruction. Celui-ci vient d’auditionner à notre demande, l’avocat avec lequel travaillait Jean-Pascal Couraud lors de sa disparition. Le juge d’instruction pourrait alors désormais proposer rapidement la clôture de l’instruction et mettre l’ensemble du dossier d’enquête à la disposition de la partie civile.

Sans avoir pu établir de preuves formelles d’un assassinat, les enquêteurs laissent transparaître le fait que les auditions effectués ont mis en évidence la réalité des déclarations des personnes accusées par Vetea Guilloux. Dans ces déclarations qui ont été faites à diverses personnes et à diverses reprises, les auteurs des faits expliquent, parfois de manière détaillée, le crime qu’ils ont commis sur la personne de Jean-Pascal Couraud.

Nous attendons la transmission des pièces du dossier afin de déterminer si de nouvelles auditions doivent être demandées puisque nous continuons encore à recueillir les déclarations de personnes, ex-salariés du GIP, ayant entendu l’histoire de cet assassinat racontée de manière détaillée par les auteurs eux-mêmes, dans des circonstances diverses.

Par ailleurs, selon la presse nationale (voir l’article de Libération ci-joint), les documents saisis dans le cadre de l’affaire Clearstream confirment que l’existence du compte japonais de Chirac était bien un dossier suivi de très près par la DGSE dés 1997. Ainsi, les déclarations faites par l’avocat de Jean-Pascal Couraud, indiquant une implication directe ou indirecte d’agents ou ex-agents de la DGSE dans la disparition de Jean-Pascal Couraud, pourraient s’avérer exactes. Il est ainsi utile de rappeler que les responsables des équipes chargées de la surveillance et de l’espionage au sein de l’ex-GIP, étaient eux-mêmes des ex-agents de la DGSE. Il a été récemment entendu par le juge d’instruction à notre demande.

Dans ce contexte, suivant les conseils de notre avocat, il nous a paru opportun à ce stade du dossier de nous adresser directement à la nouvelle Garde des Sceaux afin de la sensibiliser sur le caractère très particulier de cette affaire, et sur le fort besoin de justice et vérité éprouvé par de nombreux Polynésiens. Copie de ce courrier vous est transmis en pièces jointe.

Vous remerciant de votre soutien,

Très cordialement

Philippe Couraud

magazine takes aim at new president

2007-05-10T14:53:00.000-10:00

NEWS

New President Nicholas Sarkozy is in the crosshairs of a magazine editor deeply concerned about continued activities by a man allegedly involved with the assassination of Jean-Pascal Couraud.

In the May edition of Tahiti Pacifique magazine, editor Alex du Prel calls for an independent inquiry into what he describes as "two generations" of territorial rule by "oligarchy."

Not named, but identified is former GIP head Leonard "Rere" Puputauki, a man among many said to operate with "impunity" despite breaking dozens of French laws - language mirrored by a UNESCO declaration calling for aid to be tied to media freedoms.

SEE

Open letter to presidential candidates
Medellin Declaration from UNESCO media convention

brother of dead journalist sacked on st. valentine's

2007-02-22T02:28:00.000-10:00

.......................................................................

NEWS

Ministers in French Polynesia are being accused of sacking a man whose brother went missing nine years ago.

Philippe Couraud was heading a committee of family and friends looking into the alleged assassination of his brother, an investigative journalist, by French-trained agents.

Couraud was removed from his position as Town Planning director after a change of government in the territorial assembly.

Union officials say a decision to fire Philippe Couraud was taken at a meeting in Tahiti of the Council of Ministers on 14th February, Saint Valentine’s Day, last Wednesday.

News of the sacking was posted to the Tahitipresse Agency website four days later, following a statement from the Union of Public Service Executive Officers, SCFP.

“At the time of its last Council of Ministers of February 14, 2007, the government removed Philippe Couraud as head of department of Town Planning.”

“Revocation of his appointment was made without explanation, and under urgency,” claim officials from Syndicat des Cadres de la Fonction Publique in a media statement.

SCFP officials said they were concerned at “politicisation” at the high end of the “administrative spectrum.”

They questioned what Couraud had done to deserve being fired, themselves answering “nothing” - other than asking for a full and proper inquiry into the alleged assassination of his brother, Jean-Pascal Couraud.

Bylined JPK, Couraud went missing on 15th December 1997, nine years ago, with early fears of suicide replaced by allegations from a security agent working for former long-time president Gaston Flosse.

In late 2004, Vetea Guilloux said the former Pape’ete editor was tortured and drowned, after gaining access to top secret documents that allegedly revealed high level corruption by Flosse, and his mainland France patron, Jacques Chirac.

French journalists from channel TF1 broadcast a documentary on the assassination allegations shortly before by-elections on Saint Valentine’s day in 2005.

As many as 40,000 people protested against corruption.

Some carried placards referring to JPK, and “four concrete blocks” used by security agents in December 1997 to weigh down Couraud. His unconscious body was allegedly dropped overboard into waters more than 3,000 metres deep between Mo’orea and Tahiti.

Family and friends of JPK set up a support committee, Soutien JPK, in 2005.

As committee head, Philippe Couraud eventually accused the French-run Justice ministry of corruption at the highest levels.

An investigation restarted by police in late 2004 stalled by late 2005, the Couraud family complaining in late 2006 that they had not been able to put fresh evidence before inquiry magistrates for 11 months.

Justice officials changed the magistrate four times, with the fourth refusing to handle the case.

The last magistrate also instructed police not to accept any more evidence on the JPK case.

Now Philippe Couraud has lost his job.

Three months ago, in December 2006, Couraud was asked whether he was worried he might lose his job by speaking out against politicians.

"Maybe not under this administration, not under Oscar," he said about immediate past president, Oscar Temaru, "because this case is not against them. But if the administration changes back to the other side, who knows?"

SCPF officials described Couraud's sacking as breaching public service rules, an "arbitrary and precipitate revocation" that "disturbs and sometimes calls into question progress of projects in the public interest."

After several other sackings carried out in more or less similar fashion, SCFP officials said they can "only worry about the return of politicisation to our administrative sector."

"We again fear mishandling of information with the only aim being the control of political processes to profit particular interests," reads the SCPF statement.

French media recently published documents showing US$70 million inside an account in a Tokyo bank under the name of Gaston Flosse, with the same branch also holding an account belonging to Jacques Chirac.

Dated from the late nineties, the documents could be from among the same batch of papers that JPK was tortured and killed to cover up, say Pape'ete sources.

jpk witnesses die "strange" deaths

2006-05-11T18:04:00.000-10:00

Tahiti Pacifique Magazine, February 2006

EDITORIAL

The GIP-JPK Affair (continued)
A second (astonishing) judgment against Vetea Guilloux. The GIP-JPK legal series continues

Vetea Guilloux, a former member of GIP (Polynesian Intervention Group) who exposed two former colleagues to a cabinet minister as taking part in the kidnapping and then assassination of the journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud in 1997, was condemned to 12 months in prison, with 11 deferred, for “false allegations.”
The magistrates of the Court of Appeal of Papeete ruled that Vetea Guilloux “lied” and that his allegations had led to long and meticulous investigations, justifying the earlier judgment.
The Chief Prosecutor initially sought a judgment of 12 months in prison with 9 months deferred for ‘slanderous allegations’ but who had previously been stalled because an inquiry into the disappearance of the journalist was still underway.
As Vetea had already been imprisoned, he was freed for this lawsuit, and allowed to appeal further, to the supreme Court of Cassation, against the judgment, protesting, “What I said was true.”
Lawyer for the accused, Mr Cross, is astonished that “the court has just said to Mr. Vetea Guilloux ‘you lied but you did not slander’ and then ‘we do not have the proof that you slandered.’”
Odder still is this: as the court temporarily drew the shutters on the JPK affair all that remained were revelations by Vetea Guilloux about an espionage cell in the GIP.
But a judicial report by the investigative squad of national police on February 21, 2005 confirms all the claims by Vetea on this subject.*
Where then is the lie?
Will the investigative squad also be prosecuted for “lying”?
Then there is the family of the missing journalist, with Philippe Couraud, the brother of journalist JPK, believing “certain people within the legal system” have tried to “cover up" the affair.
Tahiti-Pacific met another witness (whom does one ignore?), a former senior official of the GIP one week before this case was heard.
During a long interview, this man revealed to us (in front of witness) several strange things that relate to the JPK affair and which are disturbing.
These things deserve to be known, with all due caution.
Initially this man explains that of the five GIP who took part in the famous party of Kikiriri where one of them talked about the assassination of JPK with Vetea Guilloux, two have since died in, at the very least, strange ways: one, V.C., a 30 year old sportsman in full health, would have drowned in 20 cm of water in a river; and the other, F.H., a strapping man of 35 years, died of a heart failure on a building site in the Tonga islands.
But what is much more disturbing is that this source affirms he would have it on his honor that he also heard testimony, similar to assertions of Vetea, by one of the participants linked to the disappearance of JPK.
He confirms he made the same claims to gendarmes during investigations, but was then told that “was not the question.”
Can we, must we believe this man?
Definitely, this affair becomes increasingly nebulous.
On October 4, 2005, Rere Puputauki and his former assistant in the GIP, Jean-Claude Tang were interviewed by the finance section of the DCPJ.
This time, it was about a nursery in Papara which cost FPF86 Fcfp more than “compared with the finished job, according to the current presidency.”
Also, a hangar ordered and paid for has never have been built.
Campaign banners of the former ruling party, Tahoeraa Huiraatira, imported from China and found in the buildings of the GIP in Tipaerui are also the subject of an investigation. – Alex du Prel.
* It is rumoured that this official report is considered to be highly “embarrassing” and that a counter-enquiry would have to be carried out (to contradict it?) by other investigators. To be confirmed.

justice officials block inquiry say family

2006-02-01T21:58:00.000-10:00

NEWS

Family of allegedly assassinated journalist Jean-Pascale Couraud say some justice officials are working “in the shadows” to block an investigation.
By-lined as JPK, Couraud disappeared on 12th December 1997.
In an update to their website www.soutienjpk.org, the family say they had been hopeful late last year of an end to inquiries ahead of the eighth anniversary of Couraud’s disappearance.
Information given to them by the presiding magistrate, Judge Barruol, gave them confidence as to the methods being used to conduct the inquiry.
However now they are not so sure.
Quoting a “well-informed source,” the Couraud family allege phone-taps have been “deliberately prevented” from being made a part of the investigations.
This removes one of the few ways “for obtaining possible evidence of an assassination which, for many observers, appears more and more likely as being the cause of the disappearance of JPK.”
The Couraud family say obstruction of justice efforts are “unworthy” and also reveal “shadiness and fear” among those being investigated.
Rumours of alleged interference show the JPK investigation is “drifting off-course” and have left the family at a “loss for words.”
“Again it appears doubtful whether everyone in this investigation has the resolve to allow the truth behind his disappearance to be established.”

radio new zealand international | affair JPK

2005-11-25T19:40:00.001-10:00

Links to Radio New Zealand stories on disappearance of French Polynesian journalist Jean Pascal Couraud and issues surrounding what has become known as the JPK affair.

18th November 2004
Complaint over treatment of witness in French Polynesia disappearance case
19th November 2004
French Polynesia journalist disappearance case may re-open
13th December 2004
Judge in French Polynesia to hear evidence in case of journalist who disappeared
15th December 2004
Family of missing French Polynesian journalist wants murder probe
17th December 2004
French Polynesian president wants journalist disappearance case solved
9th February 2005
French TV programme jeopardises legality of French Polynesia election
21st February 2005
Family of disappeared French Polynesia journalist to meet judge after murder complaint lodged
23rd February 2005
Family of missing French Polynesian journalist lays complaint against Presidential GIP service
31st March 2005
French Polynesian leader lodges complaint of espionage
7th April 2005
Call for probe of disappearance of French Polynesian opposition politician three years ago
8th April 2005
French Polynesia opposition claims manipulation in disappearance cases
6th June 2005
French Polynesian opposition hits out over plane probe allegations
29th July 2005
Concern at slowness of French Polynesian judiciary in Couraud disappearence case
4th September 2005
Decision in French Polynesian spy case due end of October
28th October 2005
French Polynesian court convicts former spy
1st November 2005
Convicted French Polynesian spy to appeal in Paris
9th November 2005
French Polynesian opposition office searched in murder probe
10 May 2006
French Polynesian murder probe sabotaged from inside - claim
5th October 2006
Police in French Polynesia seek source of prosecution criticism
6th October 2006
Paris court throws out Guilloux's conviction in Tahiti
10th October 2006
French Polynesian lawyer welcomes spy retrial in France
3rd November 2006
New testimony about disappearance of French Polynesian journalist
8th November 2006
Mystery man shows up to mark anniversary of missing Tahiti journalist
15th December 2006
Judiciary criticised over 1997 disappearance of French Polynesian journalist
22 March 2007
Memorial site of missing French Polynesian journalist vandalised
27th May 2007
Gaston Flosse again denies link with Chirac money transfer
11th June 2007
French paper claims Tahiti link in top level probe
5th July 2007
Appeal to new French justice minister to help solve mystery disappearance of Tahiti journalist
5th July 2007 (second story)
Appeal to French minister to help solve mystery disappearance of Tahiti journalist

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transcript of tf1 doco on jpk

2005-07-20T23:57:00.000-10:00

TF1 DOCUMENTARY “TROUBLED WATERS IN TAHITI”

PRESENTER 1: And now the story of Jean-Pascale Couraud. He was 37 when he disappeared leaving a family in pain and despair. It was on the 15th December 1997 near Papeete in French Polynesia. Jean Pascale Couraud alias JPK - the initials this journalist signed to vitrolic articles for years, critical of Gaston Flosse - the powerful head of the territory for over 30 years. JPK had become too embarrassing asserts a man today.

PRESENTER 2
His name is Vetea Guilloux, member of the GIP - the Polynesian Intervention Group - set up the day after the protests of 1995. He states that he was part of a spy cell, charged with keeping tabs on opponents of Gaston Flosse. On the 15th of December 1997 he followed Jean-Pascale Couraud. And when he disappeared, Vetea accuses two members of the GIP of kidnapping and killing him after a botched interrogation.

PRESENTER 1
But did Gaston Flosse, former secretary of state, former president of the territorial assembly - did he play a role in the disappearance of this journalist who had become one of his most ferocious opponents? That's what some believe in Tahiti. Notably in the independent camp. Gaston Flosse defends himself peacefully, talking about a smear campaign during a long awaited election to chose the President of French Polynesia. "Troubled waters in Tahiti" is an invesigation by Pierre Eurelle and Damien Vercamere.

TF1 reporters: Jean-Pascale Couraud was a young idealist, born in a country of surf and vahine (women) but consumed by an internal thirst for justice. An angel faced journalist who wanted to overthrow the powerful. A reporter on the daily "Les Nouvelles" in Papeete, Jean-Pascale Couraud aka JPK - his newspaper byline - became the bete noir of Gaston Flosse, president of French Polynesia. JPK disappeared mysteriously seven years ago on the night of 16th or 17th December 1997. He lived on this hill above the cemetary, in Punaavia on the island of Tahiti. It's here that his near and dear, his brother Phillipe choses to remember.

Philippe Couraud: "We never found the body so there is no grave ... nothing. Like others who have lost loved ones, we have no place to grieve. So we have made a place to remember him."
TF1: At that time, did you think of assisination?
Philippe Couraud: "When he disappeared, some did suggest that ..."
TFI: The family lay a complaint of kidnapping. But there is no follow up. For Phillipe, the last possible explanation - Jean Pascale - depressed at the time - committed suicide. He would have taken sleeping pills and drowned at sea, his body taken away by the currents. Francette, Jean-Pascale's mother, never believed it.

Francette Couraud: "On the morning Jean-Pascale disappeared, I got up at 6am. I went out and found the dog sitting on the steps looking out to sea. And he was crying. I said this is impossible. He could not have drowned. It's not possible."
For JPK's mother, the solution to his disappearance lay elsewhere. Her son's job cost him his life.
Francette Couraud: "If there was an injustice he would go mad. He couldn't stand it."
He spoke to you about his battle with Gaston Flosse?
Francette Couraud: "Oh yes! It was difficult not to talk about it! Of course he spoke about it! In Jean-Pascal's mind you can't get more rotten than him."

TFI: Gaston Flosse, the Prince of the Pacific. Since his first election to the presidency of the territorial assembly in 1973, the man has been unquestionable. Pioneer of RPR beside Jacques Chirac, Gaston Flosse has a lot of friends in Paris. In Tahiti, he even formed the GIP, the Polynesian Intervention Group, a service muscled with security civilians in
orange t-shirts. The GIP can assist an isolated atoll affected by a cyclone as well as show a strong arm at the territorial assembly. According to the opposition, they are a private militia. For Jean-Pascale Couraud, Flosse is a constant inquiry. Les Nouvelles is a small independent daily where management give him free rein. Hard hitting editorially, indiscreet inquiries; JPK attacks the Flosse presidency. Dominique Morvan, his colleague at the time, remembers.

Dominique Morvan: "He told me he was attracted to power - not to have it but to understand it. 'I need to understand how it functions' - that is where he wanted to go."
Appointed news editor, JPK decided to hit with a bang. In the spring of 1988, he prints a special Anti-Flosse edition. Thirty pages compiled from articles from the Paris press. Le Monde, VSD, Le Canard Enchainé and Jean-Pascal's own investigation. Pure vitriol from vanilla country. The president is not happy. Gaston Flosse attacks legally and seizes the 10,000 copies of the newspaper. Censorship? JPK, inteviewed at the time by RFO, was convinced.

RFO: Why do you think Gaston Flosse seized the papers?
Jean-Pascale Couraud: “I think you mean - 'why is Gaston Flosse so scared of this special edition?' I think because everything in this edition is true.”
RFO: Since this affair concerns only you, do you have anything else to add?
Jean-Pascale Couraud: “I'd like to thank Mr Gaston Flosse for the incredible publicity he has given this special edition. I'm very worried to see the institutions of the Republic ganging up in this affair, trying to supress the media when they don't like what they hear. It's extremely serious for the future of democracy and freedom in Polynesia.”

TF1: A year after this Flosse/JPK tussle, the newspaper is bought back by the Hersant Group and Jean-Pascale is let go. He joins an opposition party as communications manager and continues his crusade. JPK presses two charges against Flosse. At first, the President is aghast at being called before Paris. At the end of 1994, persuaded that the forces of darkness are working for Gaston Flosse, Jean-Pascale Couraud is scared for the first time.

Dominique Morvan: “He felt followed. He felt a bit threatened. We spoke about it with friends. At least once he thought he was going to have, how would you say it? – 'an accident.' A car had tried to push him over on his motorbike. Before his disappearance he wanted to presss charges again – I think it was the third time.”
TF1: The third time?
Dominique Morvan: “Yes, against Gaston Flosse. I think he had proof ... some documents.”

TF1: What were these documents JPK was working on? To find out, we go to the neighbouring island Moorea, to the editor of Tahiti Pacifique, the only news monthly in the archipelago. The director, editor and photographer in chief Alex Du Prel was a friend and confidant of JPK. Just before he disappeared, Jean-Pascale confided in him that he had found the files on Flosse.
Alex Du Prel: “There were about a dozen of us in the territory who knew that JPK had the archives. Because he had the archives of an old magistrate who had become the director of an office of three politicians. They were Mr Flosse, Mr Henri e De Renault de la Flaverie, and he had files on nearly all the politicians in the country.”
TF1: Henri de la Flaverie, former director of the cabinet pictured here, had photocopied all the transcriptions of the commercial activities of Gaston Flosse, from the acquisition of land in the archipelago to a surprising purchase of arms for a pearl business.
Alex Du Prel: “We called him the Paganini of the photocopier and after he left the territory he gave these archives to Jean-Pascale Couraud.”
TF1: Have you found these files?
Alex Du Prel: “No.”

TF1: did JPK disappear because of these compromising files? That's what one man states today. He's a member of the GIP, the Polynesian Intervention Group so dear to the president. His name is Vetea Guilloux and this is the first time he testifies on television. Vetea states that he has worked for several years in a spy cell in the GIP. Mission? Follow, listen and secretly film political opponents, judges and journalists.

Vetea Guilloux: “I had a bag like this, and put a camera inside. And straps to hold it in place. We had a screen with a relay on the camera.”
TF1: Why was this cell created?
Vetea Guilloux:“It's good for the president to know what is happening – events – what's going to happen. He wanted to be kept informed. And that was our job. To travel around the island, track right and left, and report back information to President Flosse.
TF1: How many people in this spy cell?
Vetea Guilloux: If you count the clean-up cell – we called it the housework team – you can add five guys.
TF1: What is the clean-up cell? The housework team?
Vetea Guilloux: “When a journalist says he is against us then we have to ... it's like when you have head lice. You have to get rid of these lice. So – shut your mouth – and you give us information – everything you know about us – and all.”

TF1: Vetea states that twice at the beginning of 1997 he was detailed to follow JPK. The second time was on the 15th of December and the day was ending.
Vetea Guilloux: “He came out here, and I followed him.”
TF1: Why did you chose that moment to follow Jean-Pascale Couraud?
Vetea Guilloux: “I had orders to follow him wherever he went. And I did it. He arrived over there and I got a call on my mobile. They told me to stop surveillance on JPK. I look in my mirrror to see if my relief is behind me. Because I couldn't see my relief, I decided to continue.”

TF1: So, ignoring the order, Vetea continues to follow JPK. Arriving in the suburbs of Papeete, the journalist parks his 4x4 by the house of Boris Leontieff – one of the opposition – and gets out of the car.
Vetea Guilloux: “I looked in the mirror at what he was doing. I saw him get some files from his car. A pile of seven centimetres. Then I saw him get out of the car. When he closes the door, my view was masked by a white van. In a few seconds I lost him. I couldn't see Jean-Pascale Couraud anymore. Then I see the van pass me and so I follow the van.”
TF1: Even if he did not see it, Vetea is persuaded that JPK is in the white vehicle. He follows the vehicle which is headed directly to the port, and goes into the area reserved for the GIP. Vetea turns around. The next day, Vetea is reported missing. Curious, Vetea discreetly questions two colleagues of the “clean-up” team, Tino Maraa and Tutu Manate.

Vetea Guilloux: “I started by questioning Tino, do you know a journalist named JPK. And the guy told me in Rurutu – oh that pig – we took him to the ocean with four concrete blocks and we threw him in the ocean. He wanted information, if a dossier .. if a file on Flosse ... they attached the hands and feet to four concrete blocks with a rope of 15 and 10 metres. When the rope tightened, they brought him to the surface. And they said – where have you hidden the documents and all? - and he was in agony and they plunged him in again. After three times he started to shit himself. And when he shat himself, they called the others. What should we do? Go to the hospital? Or clean him up? And after ... he disappeared ... dead. Voila.”

TF1: According to Vetea Guilloux, Jean-Pascale Couraud drowned in the ocean off Papeete. His body weighted down by several cement bricks. Two members of the GIP, acting under orders, had tortured a journalist and killed him. A fantasy? When he let go this bombshell at the beginning of October, Vetea was taken into court by gendarmes just 24 hours later and sentenced to three months in a prison farm for false testimony – a bit too rushed for GIP staff who stood by what he said. Anti-Flosse parties take over the story and create a scandal. Vetea Guilloux is freed on appeal after six weeks in prison and the judge demands an inquiry.

What's curious is that the two people implicated by Vetea, Tino Maraa seen here on the right, and Tutu Manate were never questioned by the judiciary. So we set off to the GIP to find Tino and Tutu. There's nearly 700 of them, sailors, dock workers, masons, security, working in Gaston Flosse's empire. The majority are ex-prisoners employed by the president for rehabilitation. We're told that Tino and Tutu are not there. But the second in charge will see us.

Yanick Boosie, Directeur-Adjoint du GIP: “I find it abhorrent that you can accuse two GIP members of assissinating a journalist. Abhorrent! I repeat that we are here for the well being of the people, we work for the country and protect the people of French Polynesia – and it stops there – that's all.”
TF1: And what about those two accused by Vetea Guilloux, Tino Maraa and Tutu Manate?
Yanick Boosie: “They're still working, still attached to the service.”
It is impossible to meet the two accused by Vetea Guilloux, on one of the islands of Rurutu, 1,000 kilometres from Papeete, where Tino is chief, and a champion stone carrier.

At Papeete market we find President Flosse campaigning for the territorial elections to be held on 13th February. The “patron” has dominated politics here for more than 30 years. But this time the campaigning is difficult. The JPK affair has poisioned the debate. Accused by an elected opposition at a full Territorial Assembly of ordering the assissination of a journalist, Gaston Flosse denies everything.

Gaston Flosse: “There is no counter-espionage unit at the GIP. Why would there be? It's absolutely false. It has nothing to do with the GIP. We have an information service. Yes ... for example we follow the campaigns of our political rivals to find out what their speeches are .... and it stops there.”
TF1: What about this declaration by Vetea Guilloux, an ex member of the GIP, who states that not only did he follow JPK but that he was assisinated?
“Yeah – that's absolutely false. The justice system inquired for six, seven years, about the disappearance of JPK and found no case to answer. All that is a fabrication created by the pro-independence people.”

TF1: After the Couraud family pressed charges of assissination an inquiry judge is about to be appointed, seven years after the disappearance, four months after Vetea's revelations all the protagonists will be questioned by the justice system. Vetea Guilloux is perhaps a story-teller – a puppet – but this story is not over yet. To be continued.

Presenter 1: It is in this atmosphere that the elections of the two disputed islands will take place next week. Gaston Flosse and Oscar Temaru face off for the presidency.

french - english translation: stephen stehlin director tagata pasifika tvnz

exposing jpk | founding editorial

2005-07-20T21:33:00.000-10:00

EDITORIAL
Lack of official action continues to haunt the memory of Jean-Pascale Couraud, a Tahiti journalist who disappeared without trace on Monday 15th December 1997.
In the seven years since then, no one has been arrested in relation with his disappearance.
French police have dragged their feet through one of their customarily slow motion investigations. Any evidence still in existence has probably long been buried.
As backround, former Frrench magistrate Eric Halphen has been quoted by the BBC as saying that justice does not exist in France. It is also in short supply around the rest of the world.
JPK's colleagues in Tahiti - apart from a few brave exceptions - have bowed their heads too afraid to do their job and report what happened.
And what hasn't.
Similar problems exist across the language divide, with English speaking journalists yet to grasp the fact that a regional colleague lived and died defending freedoms they take for granted from corrupt politicians, with many pointing the finger at former president Gaston Flosse.
Questions about JPK directed towards the executive of the Pacific Islands News Association have yet to received a response.
Shameful.
This web log is aimed at providing a central location for updates about the investigation into the disappearance and presumed death of JPK.
Like many of us in an often stressful profession, JPK suffered from depression and there are suggestions he may have committed suicide by sleeping pills and drowning.
Jean Pascale Couraud was last seen holding a fat folder, said to be full of incriminating documents on Flosse.
As any journalist knows, documents are a cause for celebration, not suicide. Just like any journalist would prey for if she or he disappeared while working on a very hot story.
JPK is remembered here by his colleagues.
Gone. Not forgotten.