Sunday, November 23, 2014

# 44 Should LICADHO be in partnership with Action Pour les Enfants (APLE)?

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 stood any chance of standing up in a Cambodian court was 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 valid passport came to be cancelled and then 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.

Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond refuses to answer any questions at all in relation to Mr Fletcher’s passport. And Freedom of Information requests for documents relating to the fate of Mr Fletcher’s passport have been turned down.

On 17th Nov, three weeks after judges in the Phnom Penh Municipal Court promised Mr Fletcher a ‘re-trial’ they reversed their decision and said that he was not entitled to one because the paperwork was not delivered to the court in time.

The woman David Fletcher allegedly raped, Yang Dany, has been spirited out of Cambodia by the NGO (Action Pour Les Enfants) so that she was not available for cross-examination, had their been a trial, and not available to speak with the media. She has sent to China by APLE but there is a suggestion, pure speculation at this point, that she has been trafficked to China.

How many other men are in jail as a result of allegations as demonstrably false as those leveled at David Fletcher perpetrated by APLE?

David Fletcher was on day 21 of a hunger strike on the day I met him. He saw a glimmer of hope when I began to advocate on his behalf but that hope has evaporated. He has been abandoned by the British government and abandoned by human rights organizations in Cambodia.

At the age of 70 David realizes that he will not leave jail alive and would prefer is death to come sooner rather than later. 

For anyone interested in how this matter has unfolded (and with the patience necessary!) should start at #1 and read through to # 43.




Dear Dr Kek Pung
President
LICADHO

23rd Nov 2014

Dear Dr Pung

In the last few days I have received a good deal of information regarding the relationship between LICADHO and Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE).

I believe it to be only a matter of time before APLE is exposed as a fraud. The question is:

“If APLE is exposed as a corrupt and criminal organization, will its demise also destroy the reputation and credibility of LICADHO?”

One email I received today confirms what I have now heard from two other sources:

“Naly Pilorge of Licado was listed as Registrar of aplecambodia.org Website back in 2005/6. Mrs. Pilorge was living in a rented House in Sihanoukville at that time and I met her when she sold things and plants she could not move with her to Phnom Penh. Mr. Thierry Darnaudet and even more so Yi Moden where frequent visitors of the Licado Office in Sihanoukville which they used as a base there.

Yi Moden at that time worked as undercover and was seen every morning at the Freedom Hotel Bar/Terrasse going through List of Names and Pictures of Hotel Guests of the Freedom Hotel with the Hotel/Bar Staff of which he later married one….”

It is now clear, from a number of sources, that Naly Pilorge was one of the founders of APLE; that she has gone to some lengths to hide her own involvement with  Action Pour Les Enfants. This leads, inevitably, to a few questions that I wish to ask you, Dr Pung:

Have you asked Naly Pilorge is she was the original Registrar of APLE?

If not, will you ask her this question?

Do you and the LICADHO board believe that APLE is securing convictions of men in accordance with Cambodian law and with respect for the human rights of both the alleged ‘rapists’ and ‘victims’?

If you are not satisfied that APLE’s modus operandi is in accordance with Cambodian law, will LICADHO end its association with APLE?

Does Naly Pilorge receive a salary from APLE or any kind of financial reward from APLE when the NGO secures yet another conviction?

If it can be demonstrated, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Naly Pilorge has a close association (in both a personal and a professional sense) with a corrupt criminal non government organization, will you and the LICADHO board ask her to resign from her position as Director?

Before I left Australia on my most recent trip I was warned that I would be arrested when I arrived in Phnom Penh. I took this to be just run-of-the-mill Cambodian intimidation; that this anonymous person hoped, by making such a threat,  that I would stop asking questions in public as to why and how David Fletcher could be found guilty of ‘brutally raping’ a young woman whose virginity remained intact and whilst not in Cambodia at the time of the alleged rapes.

I have received several emails warning me not to be complacent; that APLE could set me up as it did David Fletcher. I will quote from one of them:

“My personal experience with APLE is that you want to be extremely careful since this gangstalking vigilante org is protected by the US Government, namely the Embassy and it's ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Section, the British and Australian government and to a lesser extend by Netherlands (Terre des Hommes), Switzerland, Austria, Sweden etc.”

Clearly, APLE could arrange to have me arrested on trumped up charges, find witnesses prepared to testify to my guilt of whatever crime APLE has managed to manufacture, produce sham evidence and so on – secure in the knowledge that the Phnom Penh Municipal Court would deliver the verdict APLE had paid for. Having me arrested and jailed would certainly silence me but such a course of action would also draw a great deal of unwanted attention to my blog and, perhaps, raise in a more public forum, all the questions I am raising here in my letters to you – questions that you have, to date, declined to answer.

As for the list of Embassies here that my anonymous email writer claims to be protecting APLE, I can only comment on the British Embassies in Thailand and Cambodia. Ambassador Mark Kent instructed his Thai embassy staff to arrange for the cancellation and destruction of Mr Fletcher’s valid passport in 2013 whilst knowing that it contained evidence that he was not in Cambodia at the time of the alleged rapes. Foreign & Commonwealth Office spin doctors have now provided me, in writing, with two contradictory versions of how and why Mr Fletcher’s passport was destroyed.

UK Foreign Secretary Mr Phillip Hammond has ignored all requests from both Mr Fletcher and myself to be provided with documents relating to the fate of his passport. Ms Sue Bennett admitted to me, in writing, on 6th Oct 2014, that she had the documents. She refused to provide me with copies of them, however, despite Mr Fletcher having given me, in writing, his power of attorney. Sue Bennett informed Mr Fletcher some weeks ago that she would provide Mr Fletcher with some documents “in five days.” She has not done so. It seems she has been instructed by Foreign Secretary Mr Phillip Hammond not to provide Mr Fletvher with the documents her is entitled to in accordance with British FOI legislation.

I hope, Dr Pung, that I am not the only person to ask you questions of the kind I have asked above. If Naly Pilorge was never the Registrar of APLE, if she has no association with APLE she should make a public statement to this effect. And if you, as President of LICADHO, have complete confidence in APLE you should make a public statement to this effect.

If Naly Pilorge was one of the founders of an NGO that engages in corrupt activities in order to secure the conviction of innocent men, she should be asked to resign from LICADHO. If, on examining evidence of APLE’s corruption (of which there is now too much to ignore) you come to the conclusion that the NGO is complicit in the conviction of innocent men, LICADHO should ends its association with APLE immediately and make a public statement to this effect.

best wishes

James Ricketson


This is an extract from the medical report prepared for the Phnom Penh Municipal Court in September 2010 - 3 months after David Fletcher's arrest in Thailand. The report makes clear that Yang Dany's hymen was intact; that she was a virgin. The judges decided, in the secret trial, that Yang Dany's hymen must have grown back.

10 comments:

  1. Naly Pilorge is a man-hating feminist who believes that all men are rapists and would like to see most men in jail. With LICADHO she has found the perfect cover for her APLE scam.Hey, she gets to write op-ed pieces about human rights abuses in Cambodia while she is involved in perpetrating human rights abuses of the world kind. Oh, sorry, thats right, I forgot, white men over the age of 40 have human rights! They are guilty of being men!

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  2. I will be devastated if it turns out that Lidadho is corrupt. Just as I was devastated to find out that Somaly Mam was corrupt. Is there any NGO in Cambodia that is not corrupt? I am close to giving up hope.

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  3. Scott Neeson played a leading role here baiting well known corrupt NGO APLE
    Neeson considered Fletcher a threat stealing his glory working at the dump when media stories took note of the gossip, Scott Neeson's lies grew. making more claims of Fletcher being a monster.
    Rubbish reporters such as Andrew Drummond took Neeson's bait to be true.
    It was then Neeson took to the media saying he had saved the victim Dany and offered to help the family. more lies again the family remains in poverty and Dany is now a victim of human trafficking . STOPPED AT Vietnam China border police reports. boarder is well known route for human trafficking but has been shut down by the Vietnamese
    She was earmarked to become a sextoy in China . So when you next hear Scott Neeson make claims of rescues and helping the poor .Think again as he is just another kingpin in NGO corruption raking in millions for his empire
    Its hightime Neeson is shutdown and kicked out of Cambodia.
    Jade

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    1. Yes, Scott played a pivotal role in the pursuit, persecution and prosecution of David Fletcher. He used his considerable marketing skills to convincer anyone who would listen that David Fletcher was 'grooming little girls'. He used his associate in hatred of Fletcher -Peter Drummond - to see to it that through rumour, innuendo and outright lies Fletcher's reputation would be sheathed for anyone reading, participating in, Khme440. The British Embassy took the bait - hook, line and sinker - and then conspired with Neeson, Drummond and others to have Fletcher arrested in Thailand and charged with crimes he had not committed - namely the rape of Yang Dany - a youg woman who was offered, along with her mother, the sum of $30,000 if they laid charges. Neeson, Hogan. APLE, the British Embassy and others (who shall be revealed in due course) made a huge error in judgement. When the charge against Fletcher was manufactured it was presumed that he must have been in in Cambodia in March 2009.When the British Embassy discovered that he was to in Cambodia, Ambassador Mark Kent arranged for Mr Flether's passport to be destroyed - knowing full well that this was likely to be the only solid evidence of Fletcher's innocence. They were wrong in this because it then turned out that Yang Dany was still a virgin, her hymen intact. At this point, faced with the huge embarrassment this would have caused in an open court to the conspirators who had pursued Fletcher, they arranged for the court case to be held in secret - with Fletcher denied an opportunity to present a defence and with no press or other media present to report on the proceedings. In short, Scott Neeson, Peter Hogan, APLE, the British Embassy and others conspired to have an innocent man jailed for 10 years and did all they could to guarantee that no-one would find out about the role they had all played. This plan came unstuck when I saw the court document which makes it abundantly clear that David Fletcher did not rape Yang Dany and began writing letters on Mr Fletcher's behalf. When I managed to track down Yang Dany and she admitted that no rapes took place (as did her mother)I fully expected that getting Fletcher a fair trial would be a straightforward matter. This was very naive of me. Whilst the Phnom Penh Municipal Court judges agreed to a 're-trial' on 27th Oct, they had changed their mind by 17th Nov and refused him what would have amounted to a first trial. In the meantime, APLE had told Yang Dany to leave the country and not be available for cross-examination or to talk with reports. And now, just two days ago, I discover that Naly Pilorge, Director of LICADHO, is deeply implicated in the formation and running of APLE; that Cambodia's leading human rights organisation is complicit in having innocent men jailed for sexual crimes - as has Mr Fletcher. I now know of at least one journalist who has been paid by APLE not to report on this case and it seems, with the exception of the Cambodia Daily, that other newspapers (such as the Phnom Penh Post) either do not believe that there is a story here or have been intimidated into silence by APLE.

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  4. Their silence is confirmation. It is corruption every where you look, costing a man whose crime was helping and feeding children, his life. What a sad state of the world.

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    1. Has Licadho ever achieved anything other than the writing of countless reports that no-one reads other than other NGOs who write reports? he Cambodian government is totally unfazed by Licadhos reports. A mosquito would cause the members of this corrupt government more distress than a Licadho report. And how much money does Naly Pilorge earn legitimately from her job at Licadho. Ad how much does she earn from Apre our les entrants?

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  5. David Fletcher will die din jail one way or another. At age 70 the chances of his surviving a 10 year jail sentence are slim. In any event Fletcher has decided to kill himself. And when he does there will be along list of people and organisations that did nothing to help him secure, at the very least, a fair trial. A trial in which evidence could be introduced and examined. A trip in which the young woman who claimed back in 2010 to have been raped could be cross-examined. A trial in which Mar Fletcher's passport could be introduced as evidence as to whether or not he was in Cambodia at the time. A trip in which Mr Fletcher's lawyer could call APLE representatives to give evidence and to be cross-examined as to why they have continued with their prosecution of David Fletcher despite knowing that Yang Dany was a virgin after the alleged rapes and after she and her mother have made detailed confessions that no rapes took place. Had LICADHO and AD HOC taken an interest in Mr Fletcher's case, had the British Embassy (and government) not abandoned him, had the newspapers reported the case vigorously, perhaps the judges would have felt less inclined to reverse their decision, last Thursday, to provide Mr Fletcher with a fair trial. Shame on all those who have remained silent. APLE should be in court itself for having manufactured the charges against David Fletcher. And, if as seems to be the case, Naly Pilorge is a founder of and moving force within APLE to this day she should be sacked as director of LICADHO and, possibly, charged with the deliberate obstruction of justice. None of this will happen. David Fletcher will die in jail. His death will warrant perhaps a paragraph in the local media and it will be business as usual. APLE will be on the lookout for some other man the NGO can set up for a crime he did not commit and the entire NGO community in Cambodia will turn a blind eye to yet another abuse of the legal and human rights of the legal and human rights of men who have been used by APLE and of the poor people who, like Yang Dany and her mother, are made false promises of a pot of gold awaiting them if they cry 'rape'. And if there is no evidence at all that a rape has occurred this will be of no consequence because the Phnom Penh Municipal Court can be bought. And APLE has plenty of money from the donations that flow in from naive people around the world who believe that APLE's fantastic arrest and conviction rate is evidence of how effect the NGO is in stamping out sex crimes in Cambodia and other 3rd world countries.

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  6. APLE'S way of doing business is to use a mixture of bribery and intimidation to get the results it wants and needs. And in order to justify its existence APLE need sex offenders. And if there are none around they have to create them. And the easiest way to do this is to find men like David Fletcher who fit the profile but who are not important enough for anyone to care about. Then by paying off journalists, embassy officials, police, the anti human trafficking unit, prosecutors and judges, APLE gets its prosecution and can boast of yet another successful case closed. And in flows the money. It is unbelievable that this can go on for years and everyone in Cambodia who knows it is going on says nothing and does nothing.

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  7. Iam a 40 year old man working with children in Cambodia. I have known for some time of the dangers of doing so but will now quite my job. I am not the sort of person whom Licadho and Ad Hoc would support if Action Pour Les Enfants decided that I could be their next captured pedophile. I have met Naly Pilorge once. She spoke with an American accent. What is her background? Is she an American citizen? I have heard that she is the daughter of Dr Kek Pung. Is this true. Does Dr Pung know that her daughter is involved with APLE in a way that puts innocent men in jail. I cry for this corrupt country. its beautiful people deserve better than the government they have and the self-serving non government organisations that feed off the misery of the Cambodian people

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  8. The likes of Scott Neeson is a conniving conman self-absorbed coward gutless bastard.
    Blinker Man

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