Dear Samleang
Seila
It would seem that
at least one of the men who visited me in my hotel last week was an
out-of-uniform policeman. The manager of my hotel recognized him.
Why out-of-uniform
policeman should be running errands for you raises certain questions.
If the second man
was not a policeman, this raises further questions. Who was he?
These two men have
not returned to my hotel in the past 7 days to give me the document they had in
their hands.
It is possible, I
suppose, that you did not send these two men to my hotel; that they were sent
by someone else. If so, whatever their mission was, it seems not to have
succeeded.
If, on the other
hand, these two men really were sent by yourself, please feel free to email to
me whatever document it is that they wished to give to me. I am now in
Australia and unable to be handed it in person.
A few days ago
Naly Pilorge had the following to say in a press release regarding a LICADHO
report entitled “Courts Still Failing Rape Victims”:
The
report is based on 762 cases of rape and attempted rape submitted to the rights
group’s office in Phnom Penh as well as its offices in 12 provinces between
2012 and 2014.
The
24-page report identifies corruption as one of the factors behind the failure
of the judicial system to investigate and prosecute men suspected of raping
women and children.
“Every
time the victim comes into contact with a public official, it’s likely that
they will have to make a corrupt payment and if the suspect has money he will
probably be able to buy his freedom,” Licadho director Naly Pilorge said in a
press release accompanying the release of the report. “Sometimes it seems like
the authorities don’t care about justice. Instead, rape cases are just a way
for them to make money.
“Corruption
is everywhere,” she said.
Only a blind
person could fail to acknowledge that in Cambodia “Corruption is everywhere.”
In the case of Mr Fletcher, corruption manifests itself first and foremost in
his being denied a fair trial in 2011. Corruption also manifests itself in Yang
Dany and her mother, Sekun, being told that they stood to gain $30,000 in
compensation if Mr Fletcher was found guilty of rape. This is to be found in
court documents, as you know.
The $30,000 offer
to Yang Dany and her mother was not only corrupt in that it played a
significant role in Mr Fletcher’s being found guilty of rape. It was also
corrupt in that it led an impoverished scavenger (Sekun) to believe that she
could earn the equivalent of 30 years wages by simply convincing her daughter
to affix her thumb print to a document accusing Mr Fletcher of rape. This abuse
of Yang Dany’s human and legal rights was exacerbated when she and her mother
found out, the hard way, that there would be no $30,000 but that they might get
$5,000 in compensation. By then the wheels of ‘justice’ had begun to turn and
there was no turning back for Yang Dany and her mother. They could not tell the
truth because they could then be charged, themselves, with perjury. They had to
stick with their story, no doubt reassured that in a secret trial, no-one was
going to care about the actual evidence – the most important of which, as you
had known since Sept 2010, was that Yang Dany survived her two hour long
‘brutal’ rapes with her hymen intact.
This would not
have passed the pub laugh test in court had there been members of the public and
media present. Hence the need for a trial held ‘in camera’.
Sekun is quite
bitter that having played the role assigned to her and Yang Dany they have not
received one cent the $5,000 they were told they would get. Nor did they
receive the financial assistance that Scott Neeson said he would provide (to
Andrew Drummond). With my camera running, I asked Sekun if she would be
prepared to tell the truth in court in late 2014. Her reply was, “If you give
me $5,000.”
Sekun will tell
whatever version of ‘the truth’ is going to result in her receiving $5,000.
However, Sekun is a most unguarded woman and it is not hard to get her to tell
the truth. A skilled lawyer, cross-examining her in court, would have little
trouble in shooting holes in whatever story Sekun chose to tell (depending on
who had given her $5,000) and getting her to admit the truth.
And it is the
truth, Seila, that you so desperately do not want to emerge in court. After
more than 5 years of hard work on your part to portray Mr Fletcher as a man who
has been found guilty in a properly constituted court, an innocent verdict
would be a severe blow to APLE’s credibility. And to the credibility of all
those (SISHA, CEOP, Scott Neeson and the FCO) who pursued Mr Fletcher on rape
charges whilst knowing, since Sept 2010, that the alleged victim remained a
virgin.
Now it is quite
apparent that the medical evidence does not support the allegation that Mr
Fletcher raped Yang Dany, your fallback position is that he is not entitled to
a ‘re-trial’ (a misnomer, since he has had no trial at all) because he
submitted certain documents to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court late. To put this
another way, in the moral world you inhabit, a man deserves to spend 10 years
in jail without a trial, regardless of his guilt or innocence, because he did not
submit documents in time.
This is not the
moral universe that a man should be living in whose job it is to protect the
human rights not just of alleged victims of sex crimes but alleged
perpetrators. It is morally reprehensible and you are not fit to occupy the
position you do and should resign if you have any principles at all. And you
should be asked to resign if APLE is to retain any credibility at all.
On the other hand,
if you wish to remain in your job and cling to whatever sliver of credibility
you and APLE retain, you could immediately write to the Minister for Justice
and advocate Mr Fletcher’s right to a fair trial. If, despite your belief that
he did not rape Yang Dany, you believe he deserves to spend 10 years in jail
for the heinous crime of submitting documents late to the court, come into
court and argue your case.
