On Monday 14th
Sept, David Fletcher will appear in the Cambodian Appeal Court requesting the trial he
has been denied for more than five years now. He has been informed by his lawyer that he will,
for the first time in five years, be given an opportunity to address the court.
This is what he intends to say:
Your Honour,
Thank you for allowing me to address you
and this Royal Court of Cambodia.
I respectfully wish to inform you of the
following facts:
(1) I am 71 years old.
(2) I am an innocent man framed by corrupt
and evil people.
(3) These people are not Khmer, but Farang.
(4) In 5 years of incarceration I have
never had a fair trial according to Cambodian law, international law and human
rights. I have never been interviewed by police. I have never been to court and
allowed to make a statement in my defense.
I respectfully inform this court and your
Honour that I only wish to be freed an innocent man.
This can only be achieved by allowing me to
have a fair trial, or declaring the illegal trial null and void. I am not
interested in and will not accept an amnesty or Royal Pardon as they do not
declare my innocence.
I respectfully ask your Honour to allow me
to prove I am innocent. I wish to leave prison free and innocent or not at all.
Please show the world that honest justice can be had in Cambodia.
Thank you, your Honour
David John Fletcher
The people responsible for putting David Fletcher in jail in the first place are not going to allow him to have a retrial.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this is the case, Anonymous 7.42. I might be reading the signals wrongly but I think that the Ministry of Justice wants this case to proceed according to the rules. If so, Mr Fletcher will be granted a trial to be held in accordance with the Cambodian Code of Criminal Procedure.
DeleteAnonymous 7:42, you are referring to APLE, correct? It appears to me that David Fletcher has ALL of the integrity and so many others have NONE!!!
ReplyDeleteAPLE is not alone in hoping that Mr Fletcher does not receive a fair trial.
DeleteI think you are seriously delusional about all of this. The ngos dont control the courts. Lets assume fletcher gets a new trial and is found innocent - the result has nothing to do with the ngos. It will be the court and prosecutor who found him guilty initially that will be questiined. But thats not going to happen.
ReplyDeleteYou think that judges, verdicts and testimony isn't bought in Cambodia? You think this whole case and conviction isn't corrupt? You think APLE , CCF and the Cambodian press isn't corrupt? I've got news for you... Cambodia is one of the most corrupt places on the planet. Grow up little boy!!
DeleteDear Anonymous 11.48
ReplyDeleteI think it is you who is naive. It is not NGOs as such who control courts or who can have a profound influence on the verdicts arrived at by judges. It is anyone who has a lot of money. It just so happens lots of NGOs have a lot of money.
In this instance, I do not think that there will be interference with the court case, but one only has to look at the outcomes of many trials over the past few years to see (unless you are blind) that a combination of money and power has an enormous impact. The most recent example is the arrest and jailing of members of the CNRP.
If ricketson and fuckwit crew think cambodia and its courts are so corrupt and so doomed then why the fuck are you living here or visiting here. Do us all a favour a fuck off back to the country you came from - im tired of you fools shit canning cambodia when it allows us expats to be here and live quite easily compared to other nearby places. I will bet that fletchers appeal will be dismissed!
ReplyDeleteWhat a facile comment!
DeleteWhat do you think the entire NGO community is doing here? They are here to do what they can to assist Cambodians get better health care, to get better education, to develop a more democratic civil society and, yes, to do whatever can be done to improve the judicial system.
The logical extension of your argument is that if you don't like the education system, "fuck off back to the country you came from." If you don't like the socialk welfare system in Cambodia, fuck off back to where you came from. Stupid.
There are those of us who can not only love our own countries but be critical of them; not only love our own countries and try to improve them, but develop similar feelings for other countries as well.
Insofar as it is possible for an Australian to do so, I have, this past 20 years, become very fond of Cambodia as a country and of Cambodian people. I wish that the government would treat its own people better and, in my own small way, I do what I can to help. The same applies for the vast majority of NGOs whom you think should fuck off back to their own countries if they dare criticise aspects of Cambodian culture, politics etc.
Right now, much as I love Australia, I am very critical of its immigration policies. Where do you suggest I fuck off to!
You should think for a few minutes before you write such nonsense.