jpk update

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...

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...

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...

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 beco...

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...

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.