jpk update

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 testimon...

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 war...

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...

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 previous...

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...

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 ti...

"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...