James Ricketson
Europe Guest House
# 51, Street 136 Phnom Penh
+85517 898 361
Dr Kek Pung
President
LICADHO
26th November 2014
Dear Dr Pung
“The world is
a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because
of the people who don't do anything about it.”
Albert
Einstein
David Fletcher will die
within two weeks. The list of those who did nothing to save his life is a long
one. It includes you. It includes LICADHO.
Yes, David Fletcher’s
decision to end his life is his own. However, the lack of hope in any form of
meaningful future for himself, at age 70, can be sourced back to five things:
1. The lies, innuendo,
rumour and scuttlebutt perpetrated by Scott Neeson and Peter Hogan’s Khmer440
and picked up and believed to be fact by journalists and the British Embassy.
2. Samleang Siela and
Actions Pour les Enfants’ manufacturing of false charges based on the
proposition that Mr Fletcher raped a young woman whose virginity remained
intact nine months before he met her, in a location thst did not exist and
whilst Mr Fletcher was out of the country.
3. Ambassador Mark Kent
ordering the destruction of Mr Fletcher’s passport.
4. APLE paying judges in the
Phnom Penh Municipal Court to find David Fletcher guilty regardless of what Mr
Samleang Seala refers to disparagingly as
the ‘facts’.
5 The silence, the turning a
blind eye, on the part of the British government, human rights organizations
such as LICADHO and ADHOC, the Cambodian NGO community and the media to such an
obvious and blatant miscarriage of justice.
Peter Hogan’s malicious
gossip may have satisfied Khmer440 readers need for some juicy scandal but I do
not imagine that readers, at the time, were
thinking that their reading pleasure would cost the reputation and life of an
innocent man. Now, the new owner of Khmer440 refuses to allow me access to his
site to attempt to undo the damage Khmer440 has done to Mr Fletcher.
The same applies for the
sensationalist articles written by Andrew Drummond and Richard Shears – with no
regard for the truth but with an eye to titillating their readers. Neither
journalist has taken up my offer to revisit the David Fletcher story and tell
it on the basis of known and verifiable facts, as opposed to scuttlebutt fed to
them by Peter Hogan and Scott Neeson. No doubt, when Mr Fletcher dies, the
stories Drummond and Shears write will carry headlines such as “Notorious Child
Abuser Dies in Cambodian Prison.’
“Most of the
evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.”
T.S. Eliot
You have not responded in
any way, Dr Pung, to the various questions I have asked you regarding the
relationship between LICADHO and Actions pour les Enfants (APLE). Nor have you
answered any questions regarding your daughter Naly Pilorge’s relationship with
APLE – both as a founder and now as a silent partner of the NGO.
If Naly is proud of her relationship with
APLE, if she believes that APLE is doing a good job, in accordance with Cambodian
law, why has she gone to such lengths to keep her association with APLE secret?
What financial remuneration does Naly receive from APLE – an NGO that pursues,
persecutes and prosecutes men (in this case David Fletcher) whom APLE knows to
be innocent? That the Director of Cambodia’s leading human rights organization
should be complicit in such scams boggles belief!
Samleang Siela, with whom
LICADHO is a partner, has made it clear that he is not interested in the facts
surrounding APLE’s pursuit and prosecution of David Fletcher – facts such as
that the alleged victim was a virgin after the rapes and denies that any rape
took place. No, Mr Siela cares nothing for such facts. What is important to him,
in his own words, is whether or not documents were delivered to the Phnom Penh
Municipal Court in time. Is this the kind of person that LICADHO wishes to work
with? Does LICADHO believe that Mr
Seila’s determination to see an innocent man jailed is a price worth paying in
order to keep up an impressive arrest and conviction rate?
The fact is (and this is a
fact!) Samleang Siela has known, since Sept 2010, that David Fletcher did not
rape Yang Dany. British Ambassador to Thailand Mark Kent has known since Sept
2010 that David Fletcher did not, could not, have raped Yang Dany unless they
accept the proposition that a young woman’s hymen can grow back after two
‘brutal rapes’. And Naly Pilorge, through APLE, must have known since Sept 2010
that David Fletcher could not have raped Yang Dany.
Do you, Dr Pung, believe
that a woman’s hymen can grow back? If not, why do you remain silent? Why do
you not add your voice to what should be a chorus of voices demanding that Mr
Fletcher be allowed to have the trial he is entitled to in accordance with the
Cambodian Code of Criminal Procedure?
These are not rhetorical
questions. There are many men in jail on the basis of evidence as unreliable or
as non-existent as that presented to Cambodian courts by Mr Siela and his
associates. Is this not a matter of concern to you?
“The only
thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Edmund Burke
Mr Fletcher has been in jail
for four and a half years now and has not been given the benefit of a trial.
Let me repeat that. There has been no trial. The one ‘trial’ that occurred in
his absence, in 2011, was a kangaroo court in which he was not legally
represented, had no opportunity to present evidence or cross-examine and whose
judges were so little interested in facts (a trait they share in common with
Samleang Siela) that they declared in their summary that Yang Dany’s virginity must have been
restored when her hymen grew back.
How much more evidence does
LICADHO need of Mr Fletcher’s innocence before making a public statement to the
effect that Mr Fletcher and all such men who get caught up in Samleang Siela’s
fact-free APLE net are entitled to a fair trial?
As mother to Naly it could be argued
that your silence, to protect your daughter, is understandable. As the
President of Cambodia's leading human rights organization your silence is not
appropriate and will, if it continues, be a contributing factor in the death of
David Fletcher. At present there is only one person defending Mr Fletcher’s
right to a fair trial – myself. Were there to be a chorus of voices insisting
that he receive a fair trial, it is just possible that Mr Ang
Vong Vathana, Minister of Justice, might instruct the Phnom Penh Municipal
Court to provide him with one.
best wishes
James Ricketson
 |
| The intact hymen of the victim of two 'brutal rapes' would, in a properly constituted court of law result in the case being thrown out of court - especially if the alleged victim claimed she was not raped. Not in Cambodia, however, and not when APLE's need to keep up an impressive arrest and conviction rate trumps the human and legal rights of men like David Fletcher. |
James Ricketson
Could it be that these organizations are corrupt, that they care little about what they portend, that they only care about a 'conviction rate' that keeps the cash register ringing? I believe that is true.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds so much like something written by David Fletcher himself. And he died in prison yesterday. R.I.P
ReplyDelete