# 87 LICADHO'S report on the Cambodian judiciary and prisons system. Some questions!

Dr Kek Pung

President

LICADHO

22nd Jan 2015

Dear Dr Pung

Yesterday the Cambodia Daily reported on yet another report released by LICADHO.

“Inmates at prisons across Cambodia continue to face systematic abuse, squalid conditions and corruption, according to a report released by rights group Licadho on Tuesday.

The report, “Rights at a Price: Life Inside Cambodia’s Prisons,” is based on interviews with prisoners, former inmates, their relatives and staff at 18 penal facilities over the past year. It calls the country’s court and prison systems “corrupt political structures driven by nepotism” that together result in the brutal treatment of inmates.

Of what value is such a report? Who does LICADHO expect to read the report? Relevant members of the Cambodian government?

Why write a report about nameless generic prisoners that merely affirms what everyone knows about the Cambodian judiciary and prison system? Do such reports have any impact in the real world in which Cambodians live or do they merely collect dust along with hundreds (thousands?) of other LICADHO reports; unread by anyone with either the power or the desire to challenge the status quo?

After 20 years of travelling to Cambodia, having seen tens of thousands of materially poor Cambodians robbed on their homes and their land, having seen the country’s natural resources raped by a rapacious kelptocracy, having seen the proliferation of $100,000 four wheel drives driven by men on salaries of less than $1000 a month, (the list goes on!) I have to ask myself:

“Has LICADHO achieved anything at all that has actually helped the Cambodian people with all its reports this past 20 years?”

If LICADHO is serious about wanting to improve the Cambodian judiciary and prison system, why not put a human face to the prisoners you write about? Why not  take particular cases and highlight the abuse of legal process inherent in how certain men came to find themselves in jail for long periods of time having had no opportunity to present a defense in court?

By chance, not design, I stumbled upon the case of David Fletcher. I could just as easily have stumbled upon the case of Matt Harland who, like David Fletcher, has been denied a trial conducted in accordance with the Cambodian Code of Criminal Procedure. What is most interesting about the David Fletcher case is that Yang Dany’s intact hymen after two “brutal rapes”, her admission that no rapes took place, her admission that she and her mother were offered $30,000 to pay charges, is very strongly suggestive of Mr Fletcher’s innocence. In any country in the world in which the rule of law applied, judges would have thrown this case out years ago. In Cambodia, however, evidence of innocence and the lack of evidence of guilt mean nothing when rich and powerful men, women and organizations can buy the court result that suits their purposes.

In November last year I asked you, Dr Pung, I asked LICADHO, to please send someone from LICADHO to observe what was supposed to be David Fletcher’s ‘re-trial’. You refused to do so. You did not bother to even acknowledge receipt of my letters.

If a representatives of LICADHO had attended s/he would have heard the APLE lawyer in court specifically request of the judges that they not allow Mr Fletcher’s trial to proceed. And what was the reason given by APLE for requesting that no trial be held? As Samleang Seila made quite clear, when asked by the Cambodia Daily for “a more detailed explanation of the disputed testimony that led to Mr. Fletcher’s conviction, Mr. Seila said the time had passed for such questions.

“It is too late for that. This hearing is a matter of law, not a matter of facts. He missed the deadline.”

What kind of NGO, in theory committed to the protection of human rights, advocates that the human and legal rights of a defendant be abrogated because paper-work did not arrive at the court in time? Especially when the reason why the paperwork did not arrive in time had nothing to do with the defendant!? Why does LICADHO consort with a man such as Samleang Seila who clearly has very limited notions of what the expression ‘human rights’ refers to?

If a representative  of LICADHO had been in court S/he would have seen the judges hand back to Mr Fletcher the evidence he wished to present. They would have heard the judges refuse to allow Mr Fletcher to speak in his own defense. And they would have noted that after the judges adjourned the court for 15 minutes they returned to read a long statement that had so obviously been written before the day’s court proceedings began. The LICADHO observer would have noted that the judges made no reference at all, in their long-winded statement, to the promise of three weeks earlier that Mr Fletcher was to be granted a retrial. And s/he would have noted also that no record of the court proceedings was made.

The court proceedings of that morning, lacking in even the pretense of due process, came on top of APLE having arranged for the key witness (Yang Dany) to leave Cambodia so that she would not be available for cross-examination or to speak with the media. Both Yang Dany and her mother, Kheang Sekun, had resolved to tell the truth in court, despite the risk of their being charged with perjury. Their appearance in a proper court of law would have caused Seila huge embarrassment. Hence to need to send Yang Dany to China. And now, lest Kheang Sekun tell the truth, APLE has moved her into a new house and instructed her not to sp4ak with any member of the media. Such is Samleang Seila’s commitment to the rule of law and the protection of human rights.

In the absence of any answers from LICADHO it is very difficult to not speculate as to why LICADHO did not want to have a representative in court to report on the clear evidence of APLE’s attempt (successful) to subvert the course of justice. APLE is a partner of LICADHO and you cannot be seen to be critical of your partner. APLE is also an NGO that your daughter Naly Pilorge helped to set up; an NGO that she now attempts to disassociate herself from (in public at least) because of the obvious conflict of interest inherent in her relationship, as Director of LICADHO, with an NGO that has revealed, through its actions, to have scant regard for the human and legal rights of either men accused of sex crimes or of the children who are coerced into giving evidence against them. Another quote from yesterday’s Cambodia Daily:

“Kuy Bunsorn, the prison department’s director-general, said Tuesday that the report’s findings were “exaggerated” in order to elicit funding from donors.

‘This organization’s (LICADHO’S) report is the same every year in terms of the accusations of torture, corruption and bad conditions in prisons. It does this to satisfy the donors to get money,’ he said.”

Whilst what Kuy Bunsorn says here needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt it does seem that LICADHO’S incessant report-writing has more to do with securing funding than with actually doing anything to help, in a concrete way, those who suffer rom human and legal rights abuses – be they Khmer or non-Khmer.

Apropos previous letters to you (all of which you ignore) I reiterate my offer to:

(1) Introduce LICADHO to a person whose account of APLE’S modus operandi needs to be made public, if s/he can be provided with protection from those who would wish him/her harm.

(2) Provide copies of all the court documents relating to David Fletcher – in not one of which is there evidence of his guilt of rape that would stand up in a trial that took place in accordance with the Cambodian Code of Criminal Procedure. These documents could be couriered to you from Australia if you and LICADHO’S lawyers are interested in looking at them.

Finally, on a positive note, it seems to me that the most significant contribution LICADHO could make to resolving the problems that have been outlined on my blog (and elsewhere) is to play a proactive role in formulating procedures and protocols in relation to the videotaping of the testimony of children involved in cases of alleged sexual abuse. I have written about this on my blog entry #85:

http://cambodia440.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/85-canadian-national-pierre-deslauriers.html

I can recommend the content of blog entry #86 as a starting point for a discussion that LICADHO could well set in motion if there is a will, a desire, on your part, on LICADHO’S part, to safeguard the human and legal rights both of children and those accused of sex crimes against them:

http://cambodia440.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/86-interviewing-methods-in-suspected.html

best wishes

James Ricketson