Mr Phillip
Hammond
Foreign
Secretary
Parliamentary House of Commons
London SW1A
9th Dec. 2014
Dear Foreign Secretary
As you are aware, Mr David Fletcher
is in a jail that does not allow him to either receive or send correspondence.
If he wishes to communicate with the outside world in writing he has to pay a
prison guard to smuggle a letter (or legal documents) out of jail.
When I am in Phnom Penh and wish to
get a document to Mr Fletcher I must smuggle it in. The same applies of Mr Fletcher wishes to get
a document out of the jail. If Mr Fletcher has no money (as is the case right
now) he cannot pay a prison guard to be his ‘mailman’ and so is effectively cut
off from the outside world.
Mr Fletcher does have occasional
access to a small $20 mobile phone but it is very limited in what it can do. It
will not allow him, for instance, to fill in an online complaints form. Bearing
this in mind, consider the email Mr Fletcher received in the past few days re
his complaint to the Parliamentary and Health
Service Ombudsman:
PROTECT
Dear Sir
Your complaint
to the Parliamentary Ombudsman
Further to your recent
emails in relation to your complaint about the Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
I have spoken with Mr Alan Haselhurst MP. He has asked that your complaint be
referred to us.
We need more information
from you before we can consider your complaint. I would be grateful if you
could complete and return the attached complaint form by 15 December 2014. Until
we have received this we are unable to consider your complaint. If you need
more time to do this please contact us as soon as possible.
If we do not receive this by
the above date we will close your case. If we receive it after this date, we
will consider it at that time and open a new case for you.
Yours faithfully
Bhavesh Wadher
Customer Services Officer
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Millbank Tower
Millbank
London
SW1P 4QP
It is simply not physically possible
for Mr Fletcher to fill in such a form in the next six days. I will write to
Bhavesh Wadher informing him of this as he (or is it a she?) seems not to
understand Mr Fletcher’s circumstances.
In the meantime there is one possible
solution to this problem: Nigel Eustace from the British Embassy in Phnom Penh
could visit Mr Fletcher in jail and provide whatever assistance he requires in
filling out the complaint form.
Such a visit could be combined with
the one Mr Eustace will, presumably, make tomorrow to give Mr Fletcher the
first tranche of documents he has requested under FOI legislation. I refer you
to Sue Bennett’s email of last week in which she wrote:
“I can confirm that we intend to release the first batch of
papers covering Thailand 2010-2013 on 10 December. We will also answer
your questions about the Power of Attorney in this release letter.”
As you know, Mr Fletcher has twice,
in writing, signed and thumb-printed, given me power of attorney. The FCO
clearly does not recognize his written and signed documents to this effect and
it is to be hoped that tomorrow your ministry will let Mr Fletcher know what
hoops he needs to jump through such that the FCO will recognize my power of
attorney.
Mr Fletcher has quite specifically
requested that the documents to be released on 10th Dec. be sent to
me in Australia but it appears that this request is to be ignored and that they
will be delivered to him in jail, by Nigel Eustace. Once they are inside the
jail walls it will not be possible for Mr Fletcher to send the documents out of
jail – either to myself or to anyone else. Perhaps it is for this reason that
Sue Bennett has ignored Mr Fletcher’s clear instructions to release the
documents to myself?
Finally, yet another question to add
to the list of the many I have asked and which you feel under no obligation to
answer:
Are you, as Foreign Secretary, satisfied that Actions Pour les
Enfants (APLE), a recipient of funding from your ministry, is conducting its
investigations in accordance with Cambodian law and with due respect for the
human and legal rights of both those accused of a crime (David Fletcher in this
instance) and the victims of such alleged crimes?
best wishes
James Ricketson
How could they possibly be so out of touch with the real world?
ReplyDeleteHey, isn't part of the whole idea of embassies to help citizens in need?
ReplyDeleteHaha, Ricketson, is there anyone in this world who does not want to have Fletcher in jail? As I follow from your blog, you are the only one fighting for the rights of this man. What you never have explained, why is Fletcher so important that this whole conspiracy would have been set up? Or do you just like conspiracy theories, whether they make sense or not?
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous 7.43
ReplyDeletethe answer is 'yes' APLE declared in Nov 2014 that it did not believe Fletcher was entitled to a fair trial because some paperwork arrived at court late. This was not, incidentally, Fletcher's fault. APLE also made its feelings about a fair trial clear when it whisked the key witness off to China so that she could not testify. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has made its position quite clear by its continued efforts to thwart Fletcher's right to a fair trial. I could go on but these examples should suffice.