jpk update

. . . 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 Fl...

. . . 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 . . .

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 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 authenti...

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 ...

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 p...

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...

"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...