# 22 British Embassy admits to destroying evidence in Fletcher case

Phillip Hammond

Foreign Secretary

Parliamentary House of Commons

London SW1A                                                                                   

24^th  October 2014

Dear Mr Hammond

re David John Fletcher

I have received no acknowledgment of receipt of my letter of 22^nd. Oct. In a way I am nor surprised. Silence is now probably the only option open to you given that the alternative would be to admit to a huge cock-up within the FCO and to apologize for it.

There was a glimmer of hope yesterday, that the FCO might at last be taking an interest in this matter. Nigel Eustace wrote the following to Mr Fletcher:

Dear Mr Fletcher,

FCO in London have received a request from Bruno Min at Fair Trails International regarding information on your forthcoming appearance at court; namely

I am unsure whether this is due to be a preliminary hearing or a full trial, and I would be very grateful if you could provide whatever clarification you can. It would also be great if you could also confirm whether, to your knowledge, Mr Fletcher is getting a retrial in Cambodia, as I have not yet been given clear information on this matter.

·         We would appreciate it if you would allow us to garner the information from your lawyer (if you wish to supply us his contact details and give us permission to discuss your case), we believe he is Mr Teng Meng Y but have no further information on his details

·         If you would prefer that we do not talk with your lawyer, that is fine, but would appreciate any further information as to your forthcoming appearance

·         If you do not want to furnish us with any information, you could email Bruno directly at fair Trails International.

Regards

Nigel

Given Mr Fletcher’s circumstances I was clearly in a better position than he to provide Nigel with as much information as he needed or wanted so I wrote the following to him:

Dear Nigel

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is James Ricketson. I am an Australian filmmaker who stumbled upon Mr Fletcher and became aware of his situation quite by accident - as I was researching another film.

Clearly, the left hand of the FCO does not know what the right hand is doing so, to bring you up to date, please visit the website I have created to alert readers as to what is going on. 

http://cambodia440.blogspot.com/

Please also find pasted below my most recent (and my 9th) letter to Mr Phillip Hammond, Foreign Secretary.

You will note, when you read the most recent entry of my blog, that there is now no question at all that Mr Fletcher raped Yang Dany. It would be good to think that her preparedness to admit to this would be the end of the matter. Alas, it is not that easy. She is being represented in court by lawyers who know  that the rape did not occur, could not have occurred, but are presenting her case to the court as though she was. This NGO (APLE) is very powerful, very rich, and has a vested interest in keeping up a constant flow of convictions of 'pedophiles'. Whether these men are guilty or not is of secondary importance.

Mr Fletcher's lawyer quit this week, leaving Mr Fletcher unrepresented. Mr Fletcher now has no choice but to defend himself in court. I am in the process of trying to find him a competent translator.

I will copy this to key personnel within FCO. I have been attempting, without success to date, to get answers to questions relating to the disappearance of Mr Fletcher's passport. If you can assist in this matter in the next 24 hours it would be greatly appreciated.

If there is any other information I can provide you with that may be of use, please do not hesitate to ask.

best wishes

James Ricketson

As of 7pm on Friday night in Phnom Penh, the last working day before Mr Fletcher is due to appear in court,  I have heard nothing back from Nigel.

David Fletcher sent him a text message this afternoon asking what, if anything, the British Embassy was going to do to help him in court on Monday. He got back a message to the effect that Nigel was not at work and so not obliged to respond. Monty Python again – with a dash of Kafka and Alice in Wonderland thrown in for good measure!

Do you realize, Mr Hammond, just how ridiculous the FCO’s position is in all this? More to the point, do you actually care? It seems not! That an innocent citizen of the UK should die in jail for a crime he did not commit is a preferable outcome, it seems, to any acknowledgement from yourself that the FCO has cocked up in its handing of Mr Fletcher’s case. Mr Fletcher’s death in jail will be but a small price to pay in the FCO’s determination to maintain, in the public eye, the illusion of competence. So be it!

As this matter draws, inexorably, to a conclusion of one kind or another on Monday 27^th Oct, you may be interested in the fourth to last blog entry I will make before the Phnom Penh Municipal Court decides on Mr Fletcher’s fate:

http://cambodia440.blogspot.com/2014/10/15-scott-neeson-defames-david-fletcher.html

The last entry will be this email to yourself.

best wishes

James Ricketson

Post Script

In is now Monday morning in Cambodia, just a few hours from when David Fletcher is due to appear in court.

In convoluted double-speak typical of diplomatic ‘communication’, Conor Doherty admits, in an email received by David Fletcher less that 48 hours before he is due in court, that the Foreign & Commonwealth Office destroyed evidence pertinent to David Fletcher’s case. Doherty’s letter in full:

Dear Mr Fletcher,

Further to our exchange below, I wanted to write to you on the points you have raised. As I have explained, your passport came to notarial staff in British Embassy Bangkok who followed the procedure for recovered/returned passports and sent your passport to Her Majesty’s Passport Office (HMPO) in the UK for cancellation.

On receipt of this passport, HMPO followed the correct procedure for cancellation of returned passports and logged the passport as returned, and destroyed it securely. HMPO have confirmed that they do not keep any details of entries on the visa pages of destroyed passports.

“If it would be useful for you to confirm with another party that this passport is not available, as it was cancelled and destroyed by the British authorities, we can write to confirm this.

Please let me or my colleagues at the British Embassy in Phnom Penh know and we can issue a letter to this effect.”

Kind regards

Conor

The proposition, in the ‘Age of Terror’ that we now find ourselves in, that a British embassy can accidentally cancel and destroy the valid passport of a UK citizen does not pass the ‘laugh test’.

As for Mr Doherty’s offer to David Fletcher, less than 48 hours before he is due in court, to “issue a letter to this effect”, this is pure “Yes, Prime Minister”:

SIR HUMPHREY It will look good on paper, Prime Minister, and that is what counts.

PRIME MINISTER We made our best endeavours to help Mr Fletcher but he failed to contact Sir Nigel Eustace.

SIR HUMPHREY Mr Eustace has not be knighted yet, Prime Minister.

PRIME MINISTER Oh! But Nige….Nigel is on the list?

SIR HUMPREY Indeed, he is, Prime Minister. He has been a loyal servant of Her Majesty.

PRIME MINISTER But the dates, Appleby, the dates! How could Mr Fletcher have possibly made a request for a letter over the weekend to Nigel? From his prison cell? We are closed on the weekend? And we don’t open on Monday until after the court hearing!

SIR HUMPHREY It is highly unlikely that any journalist is going to worry themselves with such details, Prime Minister.

PRIME MINISTER But what if they do?  

SIR HUMPHREY Refer the question to me, Prime Minister.

PRIME MINISTER And what will you say?

SIR HUMPRHEY That the question of Mr Fletcher’s passport has been the subject of a great deal of correspondence and that, as a very busy man, you have no intention of discussing further a matter that has already be adequately canvassed.

PRIME MINISTER What does that actually mean, Appleby?

SIR HUMPREY No comment.

PRIME MINISTER Then why don’t I simply say, “No comment.”

SIR HUMPREY Because that would make it seem as if you were trying to evade the question, Prime Minister.

PRIME MINISTER Yes, yes, I see your point, Applely, but that word ‘canvassed’, what does it actually mean?

SIR HUMPREY I would not worry about that, Prime Minister. It will sound Prime Ministerial, and that is what counts.

PRIME MINISTER Indeed, Sir Humphrey, indeed!

It will be interesting to see if Nigel Eustace turns up at court this afternoon to observe the legal proceedings - perhaps bearing with him a letter for the judges explaining that the British embassy in Thailand accidentally destroyed evidence that Mr Fletcher was hoping to be able to present to the court in his defense?

# 21 Filmmaker's statement to the court, 26th September 2014

To:

Mr Ke Sakhan Vice Head of Phnom Penh Municipal Trial Court, as Head of Council

Mrs Chaing Sinat, Vive Head of Phnom Municipal Trial Court, as Head of Council

Chea Sok Heang, Judge of Phnom Penh Municipal Trial Court, as Counsel Judge

re Criminal case No 1551, dated 15 July 2010

Trial No. 1854, dated 15 October 2010

26^th September 2014

Dear Judges Ke, Bhaing and Sok

I am an Australian citizen and filmmaker. I greatly admire Cambodia and its people and I wish the country well. Sadly, I believe that sometimes Cambodian people are not treated well by foreigners and I am making a film about this subject. I expect and intend the film to have wide distribution.

I am aware of and admire the efforts of the current Cambodian courts to stamp out the evil exploitation of women and children within the country and to place in jail the persons responsible.

I am also aware of the case of  a UK citizen, David John Fletcher, sentenced by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to 10 years in jail for rapes alleged to have taken place in 2009 and 2010.  I humbly submit my belief that the court has been misled in this case by a failure to submit all of the available evidence for the Court’s consideration.

A key component of that evidence is the medical material in documentation prepared for the Court. The named victim, Yang Dany, was subject to competent medical examination after 2 alleged rapes but found to be still a virgin, with hymen intact. The Court will be aware that the presence of an intact hymen rules out the possibility of rape.

Mr Fletcher would have welcomed and would still welcome the opportunity to answer the allegations made against him. He would have welcomed the chance to clearly review these with the Anti-Human Trafficking Police, with an Investigating Judge or with any other authorised person within the Cambodian legal system. Unfortunately such an opportunity never came his way. As a result Mr Fletcher was never able to introduce evidence in support of his own assertion that he is innocent of the charges that have been laid against him. Some of this evidence is in the form of documents formally in the possession of the British Embassy in Thailand. 

Mr Fletcher is in the process of obtaining copies of that evidence from the Embassy. He greatly wishes and sincerely requests the opportunity to submit this material and his defense to the court on any date appointed for a hearing of his appeal or at a new trial.

In closing, I would like to make clear my own abhorrence of crimes against women and children. The strength of this feeling is only matched by my belief in the primacy of Justice, a feeling shared, I am convinced, by the Court.  I respectfully trust that this submission will be seen in that light.

yours sincerely

 

James Ricketson

# 20 Do LICADHO and ADHOC believe David Fletcher is entitled to a fair trial?

Dear LICADHO and ADHOC

Do you believe that David Fletcher is entitled to a fair trial?

Do you believe that the 2011 trial held in secret, with Fletcher unrepresented legally and unable to attend and present evidence in his defense, was fair? In accordance with the Cambodian Code of Criminal Procedure?

Tomorrow’s hearing in the Phnom Penh Municipal Court (27^th Oct) may well be Mr Fletcher’s last opportunity to defend himself in court. He has spent four and a half years in jail so far for a crime that it would have been virtually impossible for him to commit - given the intact hymen of the alleged victim, Yang Dany AFTER the alleged rapes.

With less than 24 hours before his court appearance, Yang Dany’s APLE lawyers are, according to Yang Dany, instructing her to press on with her rape charges so that she can get $5,000 in compensation from Mr Fletcher. I have told Yang Dany that Mr Fletcher does not have $5,000 and that even if he did he would not give it to her.

APLE knows that Yang Dany will never get her $5,000. By holding out the prospect of a $5,000 windfall, it seems, APLE is hoping that Yang Dany does not admit in court tomorrow, what has admitted twice to me and once to two journalists – namely  that she was not raped.

APLE’s lawyers will have a problem to address if the hearing is open to the public, as it should be in accordance with Cambodian law: the medical report indicating that Yang Dany remained a virgin after the rape. How will APLE deal with this in court tomorrow if Yang Dany is cross-examined?

One way would be to see to it that Yang Dany is not cross-examined; that her rape allegations go unchallenged by the defense; that no reference is made to the doctor’s ‘virginity report’. For this to occur, without raising a Pandora’s Box of questions, the court proceedings would need to be held ‘in camera’ so that no journalists were be on hand to report on the case. The judges could then, as they did after the original trial, wait a week and issue a press release stating that Mr Fletcher’s appeal to be allowed a fair trial (euphemistically referred to as a ‘re-trial’) has failed and that he must serve his full 10 year sentence for rape. The media will report this, briefly. End of story. The illusion that justice has been done will be maintained. Back to business as usual.

I believe, in the interests of Mr Fletcher’s legal and human rights, that it would be appropriate for both LICADHO and ADHOC to enquire of APLE if the NGO intends to oppose Mr Fletcher’s request for a re-trial. And if so, on what grounds.  And I believe it would be appropriate for both LICADHO and ADHOC (and representatives of the media) to seek an assurance from the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, early on Monday morning, that Mr Fletcher’s hearing will be open to journalists, representatives of human rights organizations and members of the public.Mr Fletcher’s right to a public hearing is enshrined in Article 136 of the Cambodian Code of Criminal Procedure:

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.

It is difficult to see how this hearing, held in public, could possibly cause a significant danger to the public order or morality.

Whilst Mr Fletcher is clearly entitled to a fair trial, the issues at stake here have little to do with Mr Fletcher but with the right of all accused (Khmer and non-Khmer) to receive a fair trial.

This is not a time for LICADHO and ADHOC to remain silent.

best wishes

James Ricketson