Deferral of high profile Tahiti corruption case a disgrace
The French Polynesian opposition politician, Oscar Temaru, says it is a disgrace that a corruption trial scheduled for this week has not gone ahead.
Transcript
The French Polynesian opposition politician, Oscar Temaru, says it is a disgrace that a corruption trial scheduled for this week has not gone ahead.
The president, Gaston Flosse, and five others have been accused of helping a leading pearl producer, Robert Wan, by paying him five times the value of Anuanuraro atoll when it was bought for nine million US dollars in 2002.
Mr Temaru lodged a complaint for alleged embezzlement in 2004.
The deferral is the second in three months of cases involving Mr Flosse who can stay in office as long as there is a court left to hear his appeal.
One such protracted case, which would have forced him to quit office, was expected to be judged in Paris last year but the court has remained silent.
Mr Temaru told Walter Zweifel, while the pro-independence advocate Pouvanaa a Oopa was jailed in 1958 for no reason, the current cases aren't concluded.
OSCAR TEMARU: It's exactly 10 years. It started in 2004 and it's a big issue in this country. I should say it's embezzlement and mismanagement of this country for a huge amount of money. They have succeeded in postponing, all the time, the trial. It has been postponed again until next June. It's a colonial system. We are in a hurry to be free, a free country and with real justice in this country. Concerning those political leaders, ten years..it's not over yet.
WALTER ZWEIFEL: When it came to court it was apparently the death of the father of one of the lawyers that was cause of the delay. Is that a plausible explanation?
OT: No, no, no...not to me.
WZ: At the same time, Mr Flosse said after the deferral was announced he would have been ready and he would have welcomed the trial to go ahead.
OT: He should be in jail. All of them.
WZ: There hasn't been a trial yet though.
OT: Oh no. well it's very clear. This land, this piece of atoll has been bought in 1982, so that is 20 years ago and the country bought it for nearly one billion francs, let's say 850 million francs.
WZ: The lawyer acting for Mr Flosse, Francois Quinquis, says there is no basis for the accusation and that this was fair value. Who is right with these valuations?
OT: You know it's a whole story. And the people who normally evaluate that piece, that land have clearly declared in the papers that he was pushed by the owner to, let's say, increase the value of that atoll. You know it's a mismanagement issue.
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