jpk update

. . . 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 proce...

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 re...

. . .   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 “pl...

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

. . . 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 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 . . .

. . . 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...