David Fletcher claims that he was not in
Cambodia at the time of the alleged rapes – 15th and 22nd
March 2009. The only evidence of this that would stand up in a Cambodian court
is to be found in Mr Fletcher’s passport. The British Embassy in Bangkok,
knowing this to be the case, destroyed Mr Fletcher’s passport without making
photocopies of the pages that he needed to present a defense in court. The
British Foreign and Commonwealth Office has now provided two different
explanations as to why and how Mr Fletcher’s passport was destroyed. In one
version it was a ‘mistake’ and in the other, in accordance with standard
Embassy protocols. Neither version of what happened to the passport withstands close
scrutiny.
Two days away from David Fletcher’s
‘re-trial’, (20th Nov 2014) the woman he allegedly raped, Yang Dany,
has been spirited out of Cambodia by the NGO (Action Pour Les Enfants) so that
she will not be available for cross-examination.
How many other men are in jail as a result
of APLE’s false allegations?
For anyone interested in how this matter
has unfolded (and with the patience necessary!) should start at #1 and read
through to # 37.
Phillip
Hammond
Foreign
Secretary
Parliamentary House of Commons
London SW1A
18th November 2014
Dear Mr Hammond
This is my eighteenth letter
to you!
I no longer have an
expectation of receiving a reply from you. It is important, however, that there
be an accurate record of all that has transpired before Mr Fletcher’s
‘re-trial’ in two days time. It will not be possible for yourself and your spin
doctors to lie about how and why the office of the Foreign Secretary
deliberately withheld from the Phnom Penh Municipal Court the letter the FCO
had promised to supply Mr Fletcher with regarding Ambassador Mark Kent’s
decision to destroy Mr Fletcher’s passport.
Cambodia may well be a
country in which, as you know, there is no rule of law, but this should provide
you with no excuse to be contributing to the perversion of justice in this
matter by withholding evidence.
As you will learn below, it
is clear that powerful forces have ben brought into play to guarantee that
David Fletcher does not receive even the semblance of a fair trial on 20th
Nov. With the key witness, Yang Dany, absent from the court proceedings, the
only evidence that might carry some weight with the court is Mr Fletcher’s
insistence that he was not in Cambodia at the time of the alleged rapes in March
2009. He will, of course, present the judges with this proposition. The judges
will, not unreasonably, expect some evidence in support of this. His own word
that the British Embassy in Thailand destroyed his passport and made no copies
of the pages relevant to his movements in March 2009, will cut no ice with the
judges. A letter from yourself, or from Ambassador Mark Kent would, however, be
difficult for the judges to ignore.
I have returned to Cambodia
to provide Mr Fletcher with the assistance that the British Embassy in Cambodia
refuses to provide him with in the lead up to his trial.
My decision to return was
inspired (if that is the right word) by the events of last Friday when police
raided Mr Fletcher’s cell and stole, amongst other things, all of his money.
This was the money he had set aside to pay for a translator and lawyer on 20th
Nov. Mr Fletcher was the only person
targeted within the prison.
I have discovered that Yang
Dany has definitely left Phnom Penh
and will not be present for the re-trial. Some weeks ago Dany told me that APLE
lawyers had instructed her not to attend court. It seems that Yang Dany, still
believing that she will receive $5,000 compensation from David Fletcher if he
is found guilty in the re-trial, has gone to China!
How does an impoverished
young woman in Cambodia, at very short notice, find the money to pay to buy
herself a passport? Given the glacial speed at which Cambodian bureaucracy
works, how was her acquisition of a passport achieved with such speed?
Some questions need to be
asked of Ana G. Pinheiro, Thierry Darnaudet and Samleang Seila at Action Pour Les
Enfants (APLE).
“Where is your
client, Yang Dany?
“Will she appear
in court on 20th Nov as requested by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court?”
“Why did APLE
recommend to Yang Dany that she not be present in court on 20th Nov
to be cross-examined?”
“Has APLE sent
Yang Dany to China?”
Who is going to ask such questions? Certainly
not the British Embassy in Cambodia? And
no-one within the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
Human rights groups such as
LICADHO and ADHOC? No.
The media? We shall see!
Action Pour Les Enfants is a
law unto itself. The NGO can frame whomsoever it chooses with false rape
allegations, promise ‘victims’ large sums of money to testify and, with an
impressive arrest and conviction rate, convince naïve funders that APLE is on
the front line in the war against pedophiles.
It may well be that Action
Pour Les Enfants does catch some genuine pedophiles but it is abundantly clear
that APLE does not care if the men it pursues are guilty or innocent. The NGO
has known since September 2010 of Yang Dany’s intact hymen but has not allowed
this fact, or Yang Dany’s recent admission that no rapes took place, to deflect
it from its chosen course of action – to see David Fletcher serve 10 years in
jail for a crime that APLE knows he did not commit.
Action Pour Les Enfants must
continue with its insistence that David Fletcher raped Yang Dany because to
admit that it was wrong, for the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to admit that it
was wrong in convicting Fletcher, would raise questions about the guilt of all
those others APLE has played a significant role in having imprisoned on the
basis of evidence as unreliable as the evidence against Fletcher.
The APLE modus operandi
abrogates Cambodian law, is a breach of the human rights of those charged with
crimes they did not commit and the materially poor ‘victims’ who, like Yang
Dany, become pawns in the corrupt business model APLE uses to fill its coffers.
If APLE would like to sue me
for defamation for making this statement (and others) I would be delighted to
appear in court with them in any jurisdiction.
APLE’s modus operandi makes
Somaly Mam seem a saint by comparison. Why does the NGO community (especially
human rights organizations such as LICADHO and ADHOC) turn a blind eye to
APLE’s criminal activities? Why does the media remain silent?
Yesterday I visited Mr
Fletcher in prison. He had prepared several documents that he wanted me to give
to a lawyer if I could find one prepared to work pro bono on Thursday. The
prison authorities refused to allow Mr Fletcher to give me these; refused to
allow the documents, necessary to his defense, to leave the prison.
It is clear that there are
powerful forces working behind the scenes determined that David Fletcher will
not receive even the semblance of a fair trial in two days time. No
representatives of the British Embassy will be present on 20th Nov.
No members of human rights organizations will be present and, it seems, there
may be no representatives of the media either. Under such circumstances, with
no lawyer, no defense, no Yang Dany to be cross-examined, the judges could very
well decide that they have no basis upon which to reverse the original ‘guilty’
result - going along with the fiction that a woman’s hymen can grown back.
If David Fletcher is found to
be guilty under the circumstances that prevail, the British Embassy, your own
office, will be able to announce that David Fletcher was provided with a fair
trial, found guilty again, and that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has no
further comment to add other than that it will be providing Mr Fletcher with
‘consular assistance’. Mr Fletcher will
die in jail.
I hope one day, if Mr Fletcher
does not die in jail, in a properly
constituted court, that you will be asked why it was that you refused to
instruct the relevant FCO staff (all of whom are copied on this letter) to
provide Mr Fletcher with the letter to the court promised by Julian Blewett? I
trust that Ambassador Mark Kent will be likewise asked, under oath, why it is
that he instructed his staff to destroy Mr Fletcher’s passport.
I have published, in four
segments, all of the footage I have shot to date of interviews I have conducted
with Yang Dany and her mother. These are to be found at:
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU9zpkYMCEo
Parts of these interviews
will be incorporated into my documentary. You can form your own conclusions
about the veracity of what Yang Dany and her mother say from this raw uncut
footage.
Let me take this opportunity
to invite yourself or any representative of the Foreign & Commonwealth
Office to be interviewed for my documentary.
best wises
James Ricketson
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