# 196 letter to Minister of Justice re Mr David Fletcher

Mr Ang Vong Vathana

Minister of Justice

Samdech Sothearos Road

Sangkat Chaktomouk

Daun Penh                                                                                                      

4^th August 2016

Dear Mr Ang Vong Vathana

re David John Fletcher

Mr Fletcher has been in jail for six years now without a trial.

In the past six years Mr Fletcher has not been interviewed by the police or by an Investigating Judge.

For six years MrFletcher has been denied his legal rights in accordance with the Cambodian Code of Criminal Procedure.

Is such contempt for due process, for the legal and human rights of Cambodians and non-Cambodians, an impression of Cambodia you wish to impart to the rest of the world, Minister?

In mid-May 2016 the Supreme Court wrote to Action Pour les Enfants (APLE) requesting a response to Mr Fletcher’s appeal to the Supreme Court.

It is my understanding that APLE had, in accordance with Cambodian law, 30 days to respond to this request made by the Supreme Court. It is also my understanding that APLE has failed to adhere to the Supreme Court’s request.  APLE’s contempt for, manipulation of, the Cambodian legal system is well known and well documented.

As will be apparent to anyone who is familiar with this case, the key witness, the alleged rape victim, Yang Dany, was sent to China so that she could neither testify in any trial or speak with journalists. It is possible that she was trafficked to China by those (and there are many) who have a vested interest in Mr Fletcher not receiving the fair trial that is his right, in accordance with Cambodian law.

Yang Dany has disappeared in China. She cannot now be found. Unless APLE can secure her return to Cambodia, Yang Dany will not be able to testify in any court case that may arise as a result of Mr Fletcher’s submission to the Supreme Court. How a trial can take place in the absence of the key witness is a mystery but, alas, an all-too-common occurrence in Cambodia.

As will be apparent to anyone who is familiar with this case APLE has made it clear that it does not believe Mr Fletcher raped Yang Dany. Mr Samleang Seila has gone on record as saying that Mr Fletcher must serve his 10 year jail sentence, not because he is guilty of rape but because he failed to deliver paper work to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on time. This is Mr Samleang Seila’s concept of justice!

As will be apparent to anyone who is familiar with this case Yang Dany, the alleged rape victim, has denied on several occasions that she was raped by Mr Fletcher – in the presence of one filmmaker (myself) and two other journalists.. Her assertion that she was not raped is backed up by medical evidence. After she was allegedly raped twice by Mr Fletcher (brutally, according to court documents), Yang Dany was examined by a doctor under a court order. The doctor declared that her hymen was intact; that she was a virgin. Not only had she not been raped; she had never had sexual intercourse. The presiding judge’s declaration that Yang Dany’s hymen must have grown back is nonsense. Unfortunately, it is nonsense of a kind that all too often flows from the lips of ignorant and ill-informed  judges in Cambodia.

As will be apparent to anyone who is familiar with this case, in addition to this persuasive evidence that Mr Fletcher did not rape Yang Dany, there is the fact that he was not in Cambodia at the time of the alleged rapes. Evidence of this would have been found in Mr Fletcher’s passport had the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office not willfully destroyed the passport, knowing that it contained evidence of Mr Fletcher’s innocence.

After six years in jail, Mr Fletcher has yet to be interviewed by the police or an investigating judge. After six years in jail he has yet to have the opportunity to present evidence to any court in support of the proposition that he is innocent of the charge of rape. This is justice Cambodian style. And you are presiding over such a system – either unwilling or unable to grant men and women charged with a crime even the most basic of the legal rights the Cambodian Constitution has accorded them.

Action Pour les Enfants does not want Mr Fletcher to receive a fair trial. In such a trial the NGO would be revealed to be incompetent, corrupt or both. The British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, likewise, does not want Mr Fletcher to receive a fair trial. In such a trial the British Embassies in both Cambodia and Thailand would be revealed to be incompetent, corrupt or both. Not even the human rights organization LICADHO would welcome a fair trial. Naly Pilorge has decided, on the basis of scuttlebutt, that Mr Fletcher must be guilty. Perhaps this is unsurprising given that Ms Pilorge was one of the founders of APLE – an NGO whose money-raising modus operandi necessitates a constant stream of sex-offender convictions. Without convictions APLE loses its raison d’etre. If there are not enough real pedophiles  to convict, men such as Mr Fletcher must be found and accused of crimes for which there is no credible evidence.

Everyone knows that this is the way justice works in Cambodia, Minister. It is time for this corrupt system to be brought to an end.

Before Mr Fletcher was arrested in June 2010 he was subjected to a trial by the media. The owner of a social networking site by the name of Khmer440, Peter Hogan, decided to use his site to defame Mr Fletcher. On the basis of no evidence at all, Mr Hogan accused Mr Fletcher of being a pedophile. One of many to believe what was published about Mr Fletcher on the Khmer440 site was Scott Neeson – a man who, as head of the Cambodian Children’s Fund, felt himself to be in competition with Mr Fletcher, who was also helping poor families in the Phnom Penh rubbish dump at the time. Mr Neeson went public with the following comment – made to a now disgraced sensationalist journalist, Andrew Drummond:

“There is little doubt Fletcher devotes his time here to grooming young girls…They think, because he gives out food, he is good.  But he is grooming….The fact is that these children can be bought. It's difficult to stop it. The British Embassy have been told about Fletcher. Many organizations have files on him, but nothing has happened. If you can get this guy sent packing you are doing a service to the children here.”

A week later Mr Neeson’s wish came true. The British Embassy in Thailand was complicit in having Thai authorities arrest Mr Fletcher. He was not charged with any crime but held in jail, in Bangkok, for a few weeks until Cambodian authorities could manufacture, under instructions,  some crime to charge him with. It took 3 weeks for Yang Dany to be convinced that there was a $30,000 pot of gold waiting for her and her mother, Sekun, if she charged Mr Fletcher with rape – the same man whom, a few weeks early, she had referred to as her ‘fiance’ and a ‘good man’. Yang Dany and her mother, Sekun, were manipulated in a way that ‘witnesses’ all too often are in this country. Extreme poverty, combined with intimidation and the promise of great wealth, can induce many Cambodians to allege whatever is asked of them by those for whom such allegations are to their advantage.

In any properly constituted court of law Mr Fletcher’s case would have been thrown out of court  in July 2010. Instead, Mr Fetcher has been denied even the semblance of a fair trial. He is in jail now as a result of lies told by Peter Hogan and Scott Neeson. He is in jail now  because the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office destroyed evidence of Mr Fletcher’s innocence – his passport. He is in jail now because Mr Samleang Seila, a man of questionable moral scruples, believes that a 10 year jail sentence is appropriate for a man who fails to deliver his paperwork to court in time.

Now Mr Fletcher is very ill. I have visited him many times this past two years but was shocked, last week, having not seen him for six weeks, to see that he has lost a lot of weight and can barely walk anymore. He has no energy and sleeps most of the time. I wonder if he is dying? 

Mr Fletcher has requested of the British Embassy in Phnom Penh that he be allowed to see a qualified physician to see what illness he is suffering from. The British Embassy has refused to assist Mr Fletcher, as it has refused to provide him any assistance this past 6 years. Mr Fletcher is an embarrassment to the British Embassy – a constant reminder of its own incompetence and its corrupt destruction of his passport. For Mr Fletcher to die in jail, having never received a trial, would suit the Foreign & Commonwealth Office well. It would never ever have to be held accountable for its destruction of Mr Fletcher’s passport.

Mr Fletcher does not wish to subject himself to the prison system’s version of medical treatment again. The last time he was seriously ill Mr Fletcher was tied into a bed and, unable to move, soiled himself. He was then taken out into the courtyard of the hospital, naked, and hosed down like an animal in full view of the public. A photograph of this shameful spectacle was taken. I have enclosed it.

Minister, I request the following:

(1) Allow Mr Fletcher to see a qualified physician to determine what sickness he is suffering from. (I will pay the doctor’s fee)

(2) Insist that APLE respond to the request made of the NGO by the Supreme Court in accordance with Cambodian law.

(3) Recommend to the Supreme Court that a hearing be held as soon as possible so that Mr Fletcher has an opportunity, after six years of waiting, to present a case in his own defense.

yours sincerely

James Ricketson