# 151 Scott Neeson: Questions for Sumner Redstone & Heather Graham

Dear Heather Graham and Sumner Redstone

You have drunk Scott Neeson’s Cool Aid.

A mistake!

You have both lent your names, your reputations, your celebrity and your money to a man who is parsimonious with the truth and to an organization that is not as it appears to be in glossy brochures, in hagiographic articles about the 'movie mogul who gave it all up etc' or on Facebook.

I neither expect or want you to take my word for it. I do expect you, however, to ask some questions of Scott Neeson and, if not satisfied with the answers, to respond appropriately. If not, you are morally complicit in the various scams Scott Neeson is engaged in to enrichen the Cambodian Children’s Fund through the exploitation of the poverty of the families he is supposedly helping.

I do not make this statement lightly and would not make it if I were not able to back it up. Rest assured, I can back it up. And I will back it up in due course. The question for you both now is whether, to use a hackneyed but apt cliché, you are both part of the problem or part of the solution.

Take this advertisement to be found on the Cambodian Children’s Fund website:

Do your maths.

$1,800 to sponsor one child is almost double the Cambodian per capita income. It is enough money to support not just one child but to support an entire family.

Think about that.

The Cambodian Children’s Fund modus operandi is to take that one child from his or her family and house them in a crowded dormitory. And I do mean ‘crowded’.

Just yesterday I interviewed two former CCF residents. One had to share her bed with two other girls. The other had to share her bed with 3 other girls.

3 to 4 girls per bed!

Do your maths.

CCF receives, from sponsors, more than $5,000 per year per bed.

And what assistance does CCF give to the impoverished families of these two girls and hundreds of children like them? $250 of ‘rice support’.

Do your maths.

That’s $4,000+ per year of sponsor monies into CCF’s coffers per bed and $750 per year to the families of the girls sleeping in these beds.

And these girls are the lucky ones. At least they get to share a bed. Other girls have to sleep on the floor.

This 3 and 4 children to a bed story is one that is repeated time and time again in interviews I conduct with current and former CCF residents.

Are you aware that such overcrowding exists in the CCF dormitories? Does it bother you? Have you asked Scott Neeson if the children at CCF get a bed of their own? Will you now ask him? And if his answer is “No, Mr Ricketson is right, the children sleep 3 and 4 to a bed and some on the floor”, will you continue to support CCF?

It gets worse.

One of the girls I interviewed yesterday had to drop out of a CCF school in order to go back to working in the dump, along with her 11 year old brother. The $250 in ‘rice support’ provided to the family by CCF is nowhere near enough to keep the wolf from the door. 

It gets worse still.

The former CCF girl who works in the dump with her 11 year old brother, has a sister who is still with CCF. Whilst she shares a bed with 2 other girls, earning CCF $1,800 a year, the rest of her family, working in the dump (including her 11 year old brother) are barely surviving on their combined income of around $1,000 a year.

This is the reality of what you have both lent your names and reputations to?

You should, of course, take what I write here with a grain of salt. But you should also, for the sake of your own reputations, ask Scott Neeson a few questions and expect direct answers to them.

At present you are both part of the problem. The question is, “Will you be part of the solution?”

best wishes

James Ricketson

Sumner Redstone is a major financial contributor to CCF

# 150 Multiple breaches of the Cambodian Code of Criminal Procedure

In addition to abusive comments I am also blocking those that are either defamatory or could be deemed to be defamatory vis a vis the Cambodian Judiciary. Some of these are clearly designed to induce (‘trick’) me into making a defamatory comment myself.

My response to all those (and there are plenty) who accuse David Fletcher of ‘sour grapes’ for not accepting the Appeal Court decision, here is the statement he would have liked to present to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court in October and November 2014 and on 14^th September 2015.

On each of these three occasions his request to address the court was refused:

Your Honours

I apologize that this document is written in English but owing to my being jail it has not been possible for me to have it translated into Khmer.

Article 44. Opening of Judicial Investigation

“In the case of a felony, the Prosecutor shall open a judicial investigation. The judicial investigation shall be based upon the initial submission provided to the investigating judge. The initial submission (to be prepared by the Prosecutor) includes: A summary of the facts…. 
The initial submission shall be dated and signed.
 These formalities shall be strictly complied with or the initial submission shall be void.”

I was not provided with a signed and dated summary of the facts before my trial?

Article 93. Interrogation Records

“For each interrogation, a written record shall be established. The written record shall be an accurate account of the interrogated person’s responses. The interrogated person shall sign or affix his finger-print to each page of the written record.”

I was not provided with copies of signed statements by Yang Dany and her mother Kheang Sekun?

Article 124. Introductory Submissions

“In compliance with Article 44 (Commencement of Judicial Investigation) of this Code, a judicial investigation is opened by the introductory submission of the Royal Prosecutor….An investigating judge may not conduct any investigative acts in the absence of an introductory submission.”

I was not provided with a copy of this ‘introductory submission’? If there was no ‘introductory submission’, no investigation could have taken place in accordance with Cambodian law.

Article 127. Investigation of Inculpatory and Exculpatory Evidence

“An investigating judge, in accordance with the law, performs all investigations that he deems useful to ascertaining the truth. An investigating judge has the obligation to collect inculpatory as well as exculpatory evidence.”

No investigating or trial judge, no policeman, no member of the Anti-Human Trafficking unit has ever asked me to present exculpatory evidence in support of my insistence that I am not guilty

Article 133. Investigative Actions Requested by Charged Persons

”At any time during a judicial investigation, the charged person may ask the investigating judge to interrogate him, question a civil party or witness, conduct a confrontation or visit a site. The request shall be in writing with a statement of reasons. If the investigating judge does not grant the request, he shall issue a rejection order within one month after receiving the request. This order shall state the reasons. The Prosecutor and the charged person shall be notified of the order without delay.”

I have never been informed that I had a legal right to ask the investigating judge to interrogate me. This would have been difficult, of course because I was in jail in Thailand.

Article 143. Notification of Placement under Judicial Investigation

“When a charged person appears for the first time, the investigating judge shall check his identity, inform him of the imputed act and its legal qualification, and receive his statement after informing him of the right to remain silent. This notification shall be mentioned in the written record of the first appearance.”

I have never been informed of my right to remain silent? I have never appeared before an investigating judge to answer questions?

Article 126. Placing Suspect under Judicial Investigation

“The investigating judge shall inform the charged person of his rights to choose a lawyer or to have a lawyer appointed according to the Law on the Bar.” 

I was never informed by an investigating judge of my right to either choose a lawyer or have one appointed? I was not aware that a trial was taking place until after it had been completed?

Article 145. Presence of Lawyer during  Interrogation

“When a charged person has a lawyer, the investigating judge shall summons the lawyer at least five days before the interrogation takes place. During that period, the lawyer may examine the case file. A charged person can be interrogated only in the presence of his lawyer.”  

As I had no lawyer it was not possible for the investigating judge summon him 5 days before an interrogation. No interrogation has ever taken place.

Article 206. Statement of Charged Persons and Reasons for Provisional Detention

“The investigating judge who orders the provisional detention of a charged person shall issue an order containing reasons. The investigating judge’s reasons in the order shall be based on the provisions of Article 205 (Reasons for Provisional Detention) of this Code. The Royal Prosecutor and the charged person shall be immediately notified of the decision.”  

I was not notified of the reasons why I was charged.

Article 247. Closing Order

“If the judge considers that the facts constitute a felony, a misdemeanor or a petty offense, he shall decide to indict the charged person before the trial court. The order shall state the facts being charged and their legal qualifications.”

I have never been provided with an order that states the facts relating to the charges made against me.

Article 252. Mandatory Rules

“128 (Assistance of Court Clerks) of this Code. 
Proceedings shall also be null and void if the violation of any substantial rule or procedure stated in the Code or any provisions concerning criminal procedure affects the interests of the concerned party. Especially, rules and procedures which intend to guarantee the rights of the defense have a substantial nature.”

I believe that many violations of the Cambodian Code of Criminal Procedure have occurred and that I am entitled, in accordance with Cambodian law, to a re-trial.

•  Article 305. Appearance of Accused upon Indictment

“According to Article 249 (Provisions of Closing Orders in Relation to Provisional Detention and Judicial Supervision) of this Code, the order to keep the accused in provisional detention will expire after four months. If the accused has not been brought before the court within this period, the accused shall be automatically released. A judgment on the merits of the case shall be made within a reasonable time period.” 

I have been in jail for four and a half years now, unable to unable to present a defense to the Phnom Penh Municipal court.

Article 316. Public Nature of Trial Hearing and Confidentiality

“Trial hearings shall be conducted in public. However, the court may order a complete or partial in-camera hearing, if it considers that a public hearing will cause a significant danger to the public order or morality.”

Did thePhnom Penh Municipal court order an in-camera hearing because it believed that the facts of this case were likely to cause a significant danger to the public order or morality?

Article 318. Establishment of Order in Hearing

“The presiding judge shall conduct and lead the trial hearing. The presiding judge shall guarantee the free exercise of the right to defense.”

As I was not in court on the day of the trial I did not have free exercise of my right to a defense.

Article 321. Evidence Evaluation by Court

“Unless it is provided otherwise by law, in criminal cases all evidence is admissible. The court has to consider the value of the evidence submitted for its examination, following the judge’s intimate conviction….The judgment of the court may be based only on the evidence included in the case file or which has been presented at the hearing.”

Why was evidence that had no bearing at all on the charges that had been laid against me (rape) allowed to be introduced by NGOs?

Article 325. Interrogation of Accused

“The presiding judge shall inform the accused of the charges that he is accused of and conduct the questioning of the accused. The presiding judge shall ask any questions which he believes to be conducive to ascertaining the truth. The presiding judge has a duty to ask the accused both inculpatory and exculpatory questions.”

At no time did the presiding judge inform me of the charges that had been laid against me.  At no time did the presiding judge question me. I was in jail in Thailand at the time of the trial.

I submit to the court that there have been sufficient breaches of the Cambodian Code of Criminal Procedure to render the original verdict of ‘guilty’ to be null and void.