Ana G. Pinheiro
Legal Coordinator
APLE (Action Pour Les Enfants)
16th October 2014
Dear Ana
A few weeks ago I
introduced myself to you, online, as a journalist and documentary filmmaker. I requested
an opportunity to talk with you or some other representative of APLE about a documentary
film I am producing. My request to meet with you has, to date, fallen on deaf
ears.
It seems, from your
failure to even acknowledge receipt of my emails of 25th and 30th
September that APLE does not invite scrutiny of its activities in Cambodia. If
I am mistaken in this presumption I will, no doubt, receive a response to this
email at your earliest possible convenience.
I am copying this email
to some human rights NGOs and members of the media because I do not want APLE to
be able to claim that I had made no attempt to get answers to certain questions
from the organization of which you are the Legal Coordinator.
My questions relate to the
role played by APLE in investigating David Fletcher’s alleged pedophile
activities in Cambodia in 2009 and 2010, in his arrest and subsequent conviction
for the alleged rape of Yang Dany in 2009.
It would seem, from all
that I have read in numerous court documents, that APLE played a significant
role in the apprehension and conviction of Mr Fletcher. There are some aspects of this role, however,
at least as far as it is presented in the media, that require clarification.
Hence my writing to you to ask some questions.
Some context is
required. Let me begin by quoting from
an article published by Richard Shears’ on 3rd Oct 2013 article for
Britain’s ‘Daily Mail’. It begins:
“Notorious British paedophile expected to spend most of his life in
mosquito-plagued Cambodian jail after raping 15-year-old girl he plied with
champagne”
A few verifiable facts:
- David Fletcher has never been convicted of a pedophile offence in
Britain or anywhere else in the world.
- Yang Dany, was not 15 at the
time of the alleged rapes. She was three months shy of 17 and referred to
herself as David Fletcher’s ‘fiance’, ‘sweetheart’ and ‘boyfriend’.
- There is no reference, in any court document, to David Fletcher plying
Yang Dany with champagne before allegedly raping her.
- Other than Yang Dany’s assertion that the rapes had occurred, no
corroborative evidence was presented to the court.
Richard Shears has, by
his own admission, lifted all of his ‘facts’ from other journalists. These
journalists, in turn, have lifted their ‘facts’ from an article published by
Andrew Drummond entitled:
“Preying On The Garbage Dump Children”.
“Convicted child sexual abuser runs ‘charity’
for rubbish dump kids in Cambodia.”
Just as ‘facts’,
can be made up to suit a journalist’s agenda, so too can verifiable facts be
ignored if they stand in the way of telling a good (and in this case, a damning)
story.
A pertinent fact
ignored by Richard Shears is that in June 2010, when Yang Dany was one month
away from being 18, she told Andrew Drummond in a tape-recorded interview that
David Fletcher was, her ‘sweetheart’, her ‘boyfriend’ and her ‘fiance’. She
referred to Mr Fletcher also as a ‘good man’.
These are not
the descriptions one would expect a young woman to use when talking about a man
who had ‘brutally raped’ her 15 months earlier – on 15th and 22nd
March 2009!
Writes Richard Shears, in
Oct 2013:
“Fletcher fled to Thailand in the wake of claims that he was using a
charity to groom for sex a number of poverty-stricken children who lived in a
rubbish dump.”
‘Claims’ is a
slippery word for a journalist to use. The reader can all too easily presume
(and indeed is invited to presume) that such ‘claims’ are based on verifiable facts. At the same time,
the journalist who uses the word can let him or herself off the hook if the
‘claims’ turn out to be untrue: “I did not assert that the claims were true!
Only that someone claimed that the claims were true.” A useful ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card for a
journalist to use!
In accordance
with this disingenuous use of words, a journalist in search of a story can
refer to any ‘claim’ that suits his or her purposes. In short: there is never any
need to let the facts stand in the way of a good story! (“Ana Pinheiro fled to Cambodia in the wake of claims that she
had…(fill in your crime of choice.))
Whilst Richard
Shears does not name the person who made these ‘grooming claims’, Andrew
Drummond shows no such restraint. He quotes Scott Neeson, Executive Director of
the Cambodian Children’s Fund, as
saying:
“There is little doubt Fletcher
devotes his time to grooming young girls….The fact is these children can be
bought. It’s difficult to stop it.”
“Little doubt!” Another of those slippery
expressions intended to vilify but with a ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card of sorts for the person who makes the
statement if it turns out that there is no evidence that Fletcher devoted “his
time to grooming young girls.” (“There is little doubt that Ana Pinheiro…(fill in your crime of choice.))
At the time Andrew Drummond’s June 2010
article was published, and at the time of Fletcher’s arrest one month later, there was no evidence
at all that Fletcher had been ‘grooming’ girls in Cambodia. This, as we shall
see in subsequent posts, is a verifiable fact. In June 2010 there were only
Scott Neeson’s unsubstantiated allegations of ‘grooming’ and scuttlebutt to be
found on a popular Cambodian blog site: Khmer440.
Here is Scott Neeson again, talking with
Andrew Drummond in June 2010, one month before Mr Fletcher’s arrest:
“The British Embassy have been
told about Fletcher. Many organizations have files on him, but nothing has
happened. If you can get this guy sent packing you are doing a service to the
children here.”
One month later, in July 2010, Fletcher was ‘sent packing’ – arrested by Thai
police, with the complicity of the British Embassy, and charged, at the outset,
with breaching Thailand’s Immigration laws.
Was Fletcher subsequently held in prison
in Thailand on the basis of information contained in the files Neeson refers
to? Or was he held on the instructions of the British Embassy in Thailand,
acting on the basis of the ‘facts’ contained in Drummond’s article?
Andrew Drummond’s article is factually
incorrect in so many ways as to render him an unreliable source for anyone in
search of verifiable facts, evidence or the truth. (Andrew Drummond was
convicted earlier this year by the Pattaya Provincial Criminal Court on charges
of criminal defamation.)
Could it be that the file containing the
damning evidence that Mr Fletcher had raped Yang Dany was the one compiled by
APLE and given to the Ministry of the Interior’s Anti—Human Trafficking and
Juvenile Protection unit?
I could ask you this question, Ana, in hopes of an answer. However,
since the answer is already on file in documents submitted to the court, my
question is rhetorical. In part, the three presiding judges (Mr. Ke Sakhan,
Mrs. Chaing Sinat and Mr. Chea Sok
Heang) relied on the APLE report when they found Mr Fletcher guilty of rape in in
a trial held in secret and to which Mr Fletcher was unable to attend.
On 23rd June 2010, almost exactly one month before Mr
Fletcher was arrested in Thailand, APLE (known
to the court as “Action for Children”) informed the Department of Anti—Human
Trafficking and Juvenile Protection that APLE has been “watching” Mr Fletcher
since 22nd Jan 2009 on the grounds that the NGO “suspected he may have sexual
relationship with minor girls.”
The key word here is ‘suspected’.
Despite having been ‘watching’ Mr
Fletcher for 17 months, APLE had yet (as of 23rd June 2010) to come
up with any evidence of inappropriate sexual behavior on Mr Fletcher’s part.
This 17 months of ‘watching’ includes 15th and 22nd March
2009 - the dates when, it is alleged, Mr Fletcher raped Yang Dany.
How did APLE’s vigilant ‘watching’
miss these two alleged rapes?
Given the chronology of events,
the following extract from this 23rd June 2010 APLE Report is
relevant:
“On 30 May 2010, Mr Fletcher had
built a relationship with a new girl at Stoeng Meanchey named Yang Dany, aged
17 (according to Residence Book). At that day he took her to visit Prey Veng.
According to questioning, Dany told that Mr Fletcher was her sweetheart, and he
proposed marriage to her by promising that he would give bride price in the
amount of $5,000. On 7th June Mr Fletcher took some items like
glasses, plates, wardrobe to Dany’s house and stayed there till over midnight
without returning.”
Other than the innuendo inherent
in “stayed there till over midnight” there is no suggestion in this APLE report
that Mr Fletcher had had either consensual or non-consensual sex with his ‘sweetheart’
Yang Dany.
This report was written 4 weeks
before Mr Fletcher was charged with having raped Yang Dany 15 months
previously! (Excuse me for belabouring this point but dates and time frames
are, in this matter, of the utmost importance.)
In the event that Mr Fletcher and
Yang Dany had had sex when Mr Fletcher “stayed there till over midnight” do
you believe, Ana, that Dany’s reference to Fletcher as ‘her sweetheart’,
‘boyfriend’ and ‘fiance’ is suggestive of his having raped her more than a year
beforehand? At the very least, alarm bells should have started ringing for
anyone with legal training. Indeed, for anyone using their common sense!
To recap: One month before Mr
Fletcher was charged with raping Yang Dany, despite 17 months of ‘watching’,
APLE had no evidence that Mr Fletcher had engaged in an inappropriate relationship
with or had consensual or non-consensual sex with Yang Dany.
As will become apparent from
court documents it is clear that Mr Fletcher and Yang Dany had not engaged in
either consensual or no-consensual sex. (I will deal with this in detail at
another time.)
In his 3rd Oct
2013 article Richard Shears writes:
“According to The Cambodia
Daily, Fletcher is the first pedophile ever to be sent back to Cambodia to
serve a prison sentence. Last night, Mr Samleang Seila, director of the
anti-paedophile group Action Pour les Enfants, spoke of his gratitude to the
authorities for pressing on with their attempts to have Fletcher extradited.
'We are satisfied with this extradition,' Mr Seila told the Daily.
My first
question for you, Ana, and for APLE is:
Is
Richard Shears correct in attributing to Mr Samleang Seila ‘his gratitude’ for
Mr Fletcher’s extradition and the fact that he is ‘satisfied with this
extradition.’
Given
that on 23rd June 2010 APLE had no evidence on file regarding Mr
Fletcher’s alleged rape of Yang Dany in March 2009 such evidence of rape must
have come to light, for APLE, at some point between 23rd June 2010
and the date of Mr Fletcher’s arrest one month later – 24th July.
My
second question:
What
was the nature of the evidence pertaining to Mr Fletcher’s rape of Yang Dany that
led to Mr Samleang Seila being ‘satisfied’ with Mr Fletcher’s extradition?
Let us
return to the chronological sequence of events again for a moment.
I am not,
incidentally, relying for my facts here on anything Mr Fletcher has told me. I
am relying only on information I have gleaned from the documents submitted to
the Phnom Penh Municipal Court by various interested parties, including APLE.
On 25th June 2010, two
days after APLE had filed its report, the Department of Anti-Human Trafficking
and Juvenile Protection filed a report of its own - the subject of which is the
allegation that David Fletcher was “suspected of having sexual relationships
with minors.”
Again, suspicions but no
evidence. Suspected by whom? APLE? Scott Neeson?
The outcomes of this Anti-Human
Trafficking investigation relevant to the charge of rape are, according to
court documents, as follows:
“A girl named Yang Dany described
that in May 2010, Fletcher tried to get in touch with her and asked her to go
sightseeing with him in Prey Veng province. She revealed that Fletcher was her
boyfriend and that he had asked to marry her by offering her a dowry of $5,000.
The man bought her glasses, plates and wardrobe.”
There is no reference at all in
this Anti-Human Trafficking report to Mr Fletcher having raped Yang Dany twice
in 2009. There is no suggestion, in the report that David Fletcher and Yang
Dany had engaged in either consensual or non-consensual sex. The very worst
offence Mr Fletcher could be accused of, on the basis of this Anti-Human
Trafficking report, is that he asked her to go to Prey Veng and offered to
marry her and pay $5,000 bride price.
In these court reports Yang Dany
describes Mr Fletcher as her ‘sweetheart’, ‘fiance’ ‘boyfriend’
and as a ’good man’. Are these the words one would expect a 17 year old
woman to use in relation to a man who has brutally raped her 15 or so months
previously? Especially given that Yang Dany had had ample opportunity to inform
SISHA, APLE, CEOPS that her ‘sweetheart’,
‘fiance’ ‘boyfriend’ had raped her 15 months earlier?
Why did Yang Dany wait until
after the publication of Andrew Drummond’s article in June 2010 before making
her rape allegations? Or, to be more precise, why did Yang Dany’s mother file
he complaint on behalf of her 18 year old daughter whilst, at the same time,
requesting $30,000 in compensation?
The request made by the
Anti-Human Trafficking Unit on 25th June 2010 reads as follows:
“To continue to work
with APLE to monitor the activities and locate victims for interviews to
collect evidence against the suspect.
To work with the
British Embassy and CEOP organization to collect additional related information
and background of David John Fletcher.
In the event of lack
of charging evidence and citing his dangerous behaviours on Cambodian children,
the department hereby.”
From these observations, to be
found in court documents, certain assumptions can be made:
- APLE, the Anti-Human
Trafficking unit, the British Embassy and CEOP had been working together in
hopes of finding evidence of ‘dangerous behaviours on Cambodian children’.
- APLE, the Anti-Human Trafficking
unit, the British Embassy and CEOP had not, as of 25th June 2010
uncovered any evidence at all that Mr Fletcher had raped Dany, had sex with her
or had committed “dangerous behaviours on Cambodian children.”
(That British Embassy in Cambodia
was involved in the ongoing investigation into Mr Fletcher’s activities in Cambodia
is a topic that will be explored in more detail elsewhere in the fullness of
time.)
To recap:
If this 25th June 2010
report is an accurate record of events it can be inferred that APLE and the Anti-Human
Trafficking unit had been working together and would continue to do so; that
the British Embassy in Cambodia, SISHA and CEOP were involved in ongoing
investigations. Between them, no evidence at all that Mr Fletcher had raped
Yang Dany had been uncovered by the organizations that had been looking for
such evidence. In the case of APLE this search for evidence had been going on
for 17 months.
24th
July 2010
Four weeks later David Fletcher
was arrested in Thailand. He was accused of “sexual carnal knowledge offense
commitment on some of children in Cambodia”.
No such evidence had existed 4
weeks previously but now, in the wake of Andrew Drummond’s June 2010 article,
suddenly their was sufficient evidence to warrant Mr Fletcher’s arrest!
What new evidence had come to
light in the previous 4 weeks?
Did it occur to anyone at APLE to ask Yang Dany how it was that she was
telling a completely different story about David Fletcher in July 2010 to the
one she told in June 2010?
In the court documents I have
read, (and I have read most of them) there is nothing to support the
proposition that Mr Fletcher had ‘carnal knowledge’ of any of the children he
was working with in the Phnom Penh rubbish dump. The only evidence of illegal acts
on Mr Fletcher’s part is Yang Dany’s insistence that Mr Fletcher raped her on
15 March 2009 and on 22 March 2009 at his bar – ‘Bogie and Bacalls’.
If Mr Fletcher had been present
at his own trial he would have been able to inform the court that ‘Bogie and
Bacalls’ did not exist, as a bar, in March 2009.
What happened between 25th
June and 24th July 2010 (just four weeks) that enabled APLE the
Anti-Human Trafficking unit, CEOPS, SISHA and/or the British embassy to
transform David Fletcher from ‘boyfriend’, ‘fiance’ or ‘sweetheart’ into brutal
rapist?
Given APLE’s ‘satisfaction’ with
Mr Fletcher’s extradition and the ‘gratitude’ expressed by Mr Samleang Seila, APLE must, at the time,
have been in possession of evidence that was strongly indicative of Mr
Fletcher’s guilt of having raped Yang Dany. Given that there is no evidence on
file, other than Yang Dany’s assertions, that Mr Fletcher raped her in 2009:
What
evidence does APLE have that the allegations are true or even worthy of serious
consideration in a court of law?
This
is not a rhetorical question, Ana.
On 27th
October 2014, at 2pm, there will be a hearing at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court
to determine whether or not Mr Fletcher is entitled to a re-trial. Given that
he has never once been interviewed by any policeman, by anyone from the
Anti-Human Trafficking unit or by an Investigating or Prosecuting judge, given
that he has never had an opportunity to present a defense in court, I trust you
will agree that Mr Fletcher is entitled to a fair trial. I trust that you or
some representative of APLE will be in court on 27th Oct to see to
it that Mr Fletcher’s legal rights are respected in accordance with the Cambodian
Code of Criminal Procedure.
best
wishes
James
Ricketson
No comments:
Post a Comment