Mr Ang Vong Vathana
Minister of Justice
Samdech Sothearos Road
Sangkat Chaktomouk
Daun Penh
4th
August 2016
Dear Mr Ang Vong Vathana
re David John Fletcher
Mr Fletcher has been in jail for six years now
without a trial.
In the past six years Mr Fletcher has not been
interviewed by the police or by an Investigating Judge.
For six years MrFletcher has been denied his legal
rights in accordance with the Cambodian Code of Criminal Procedure.
Is such contempt for due process, for the legal and
human rights of Cambodians and non-Cambodians, an impression of Cambodia you
wish to impart to the rest of the world, Minister?
In mid-May 2016 the Supreme Court wrote to Action
Pour les Enfants (APLE) requesting a response to Mr Fletcher’s appeal to the
Supreme Court.
It is my understanding that APLE had, in accordance
with Cambodian law, 30 days to respond to this request made by the Supreme
Court. It is also my understanding that APLE has failed to adhere to the
Supreme Court’s request. APLE’s contempt
for, manipulation of, the Cambodian legal system is well known and well
documented.
As will be apparent to anyone who is familiar with
this case, the key witness, the alleged rape victim, Yang Dany, was sent to
China so that she could neither testify in any trial or speak with journalists.
It is possible that she was trafficked to China by those (and there are many)
who have a vested interest in Mr Fletcher not receiving the fair trial that is
his right, in accordance with Cambodian law.
Yang Dany has disappeared in China. She cannot now
be found. Unless APLE can secure her return to Cambodia, Yang Dany will not be
able to testify in any court case that may arise as a result of Mr Fletcher’s
submission to the Supreme Court. How a trial can take place in the absence of
the key witness is a mystery but, alas, an all-too-common occurrence in
Cambodia.
As will be apparent to anyone who is familiar with
this case APLE has made it clear that it does not believe Mr Fletcher raped
Yang Dany. Mr Samleang Seila has gone on record as saying that Mr Fletcher must
serve his 10 year jail sentence, not because he is guilty of rape but because
he failed to deliver paper work to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on time. This
is Mr Samleang Seila’s concept of justice!
As will be apparent to anyone who is familiar with
this case Yang Dany, the alleged rape victim, has denied on several occasions
that she was raped by Mr Fletcher – in the presence of one filmmaker (myself)
and two other journalists.. Her assertion that she was not raped is backed up
by medical evidence. After she was allegedly raped twice by Mr Fletcher
(brutally, according to court documents), Yang Dany was examined by a doctor
under a court order. The doctor declared that her hymen was intact; that she
was a virgin. Not only had she not been raped; she had never had sexual
intercourse. The presiding judge’s declaration that Yang Dany’s hymen must have
grown back is nonsense. Unfortunately, it is nonsense of a kind that all too
often flows from the lips of ignorant and ill-informed judges in Cambodia.
As will be apparent to anyone who is familiar with
this case, in addition to this persuasive evidence that Mr Fletcher did not
rape Yang Dany, there is the fact that he was not in Cambodia at the time of
the alleged rapes. Evidence of this would have been found in Mr Fletcher’s
passport had the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office not willfully
destroyed the passport, knowing that it contained evidence of Mr Fletcher’s
innocence.
After six years in jail, Mr Fletcher has yet to be
interviewed by the police or an investigating judge. After six years in jail he
has yet to have the opportunity to present evidence to any court in support of
the proposition that he is innocent of the charge of rape. This is justice
Cambodian style. And you are presiding over such a system – either unwilling or
unable to grant men and women charged with a crime even the most basic of the
legal rights the Cambodian Constitution has accorded them.
Action Pour les Enfants does not want Mr Fletcher
to receive a fair trial. In such a trial the NGO would be revealed to be
incompetent, corrupt or both. The British Foreign & Commonwealth Office,
likewise, does not want Mr Fletcher to receive a fair trial. In such a trial
the British Embassies in both Cambodia and Thailand would be revealed to be
incompetent, corrupt or both. Not even the human rights organization LICADHO
would welcome a fair trial. Naly Pilorge has decided, on the basis of
scuttlebutt, that Mr Fletcher must be guilty. Perhaps this is unsurprising
given that Ms Pilorge was one of the founders of APLE – an NGO whose
money-raising modus operandi necessitates a constant stream of sex-offender
convictions. Without convictions APLE loses its raison d’etre. If there are not
enough real pedophiles to convict, men
such as Mr Fletcher must be found and accused of crimes for which there is no credible
evidence.
Everyone knows that this is the way justice works
in Cambodia, Minister. It is time for this corrupt system to be brought to an
end.
Before Mr Fletcher was arrested in June 2010 he was
subjected to a trial by the media. The owner of a social networking site by the
name of Khmer440, Peter Hogan, decided to use his site to defame Mr Fletcher.
On the basis of no evidence at all, Mr Hogan accused Mr Fletcher of being a
pedophile. One of many to believe what was published about Mr Fletcher on the
Khmer440 site was Scott Neeson – a man who, as head of the Cambodian Children’s
Fund, felt himself to be in competition with Mr Fletcher, who was also helping
poor families in the Phnom Penh rubbish dump at the time. Mr Neeson went public
with the following comment – made to a now disgraced sensationalist journalist,
Andrew Drummond:
“There
is little doubt Fletcher devotes his time here to grooming young girls…They
think, because he gives out food, he is good. But he is grooming….The
fact is that these children can be bought. It's difficult to stop it. 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.”
A week later
Mr Neeson’s wish came true. The British Embassy in Thailand was complicit in
having Thai authorities arrest Mr Fletcher. He was not charged with any crime
but held in jail, in Bangkok, for a few weeks until Cambodian authorities could
manufacture, under instructions, some
crime to charge him with. It took 3 weeks for Yang Dany to be convinced that
there was a $30,000 pot of gold waiting for her and her mother, Sekun, if she
charged Mr Fletcher with rape – the same man whom, a few weeks early, she had
referred to as her ‘fiance’ and a ‘good man’. Yang Dany and her mother, Sekun,
were manipulated in a way that ‘witnesses’ all too often are in this country.
Extreme poverty, combined with intimidation and the promise of great wealth,
can induce many Cambodians to allege whatever is asked of them by those for whom
such allegations are to their advantage.
In any properly
constituted court of law Mr Fletcher’s case would have been thrown out of
court in July 2010. Instead, Mr Fetcher
has been denied even the semblance of a fair trial. He is in jail now as a result
of lies told by Peter Hogan and Scott Neeson. He is in jail now because the British Foreign & Commonwealth
Office destroyed evidence of Mr Fletcher’s innocence – his passport. He is in
jail now because Mr Samleang Seila, a man of questionable moral scruples,
believes that a 10 year jail sentence is appropriate for a man who fails to
deliver his paperwork to court in time.
Now Mr
Fletcher is very ill. I have visited him many times this past two years but was
shocked, last week, having not seen him for six weeks, to see that he has lost
a lot of weight and can barely walk anymore. He has no energy and sleeps most
of the time. I wonder if he is dying?
Mr Fletcher
has requested of the British Embassy in Phnom Penh that he be allowed to see a
qualified physician to see what illness he is suffering from. The British
Embassy has refused to assist Mr Fletcher, as it has refused to provide him any
assistance this past 6 years. Mr Fletcher is an embarrassment to the British Embassy
– a constant reminder of its own incompetence and its corrupt destruction of
his passport. For Mr Fletcher to die in jail, having never received a trial,
would suit the Foreign & Commonwealth Office well. It would never ever have
to be held accountable for its destruction of Mr Fletcher’s passport.
Mr Fletcher
does not wish to subject himself to the prison system’s version of medical
treatment again. The last time he was seriously ill Mr Fletcher was tied into a
bed and, unable to move, soiled himself. He was then taken out into the
courtyard of the hospital, naked, and hosed down like an animal in full view of
the public. A photograph of this shameful spectacle was taken. I have enclosed
it.
Minister, I
request the following:
(1) Allow Mr
Fletcher to see a qualified physician to determine what sickness he is
suffering from. (I will pay the doctor’s fee)
(2) Insist
that APLE respond to the request made of the NGO by the Supreme Court in
accordance with Cambodian law.
(3) Recommend
to the Supreme Court that a hearing be held as soon as possible so that Mr Fletcher
has an opportunity, after six years of waiting, to present a case in his own
defense.
yours
sincerely
James
Ricketson
