14/03/2013
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Complaint laid against Flosse thugs
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"Investigation into death of Flosse opponent relaunched"
- Special Papeete Report
From Le Monde | 13/03/2013 at 15:27
By Gerard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme
More than fifteen years after the fact, the mystery behind the disappearance of the former journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud known as "JPK" involving a notorious strongman of French Polynesia, Senator Gaston Flosse, has never seemed so close to being resolved.
In recent weeks, the judge Jean-François Papeete Redonnet discreetly collected explosive new evidence reinforcing the thesis of a homicide linked to the political realm.
So much so that the lawyers for the family of the deceased filed on February 13, a memorandum calling for the judge to indict three former members of the Intervention Group of Polynesia (GIP), the former militia of Gaston Flosse.
Lawyers William Bourdon, James Lau and Marie-Spitz Eftimie now consider conditions met "to consider there exist serious and corroborating evidence of having committed the crime of murder" against Leonard (known as Rere) Puputauki ex GIP boss, Tutu Manate and Tino Mara, two long serving heavies under Mr Flosse.
Asked by Le Monde, Mr. Bourdon said that "beyond these indictments another chapter will open, on the intellectual leaders or the contractors (of this crime)."
Mr. Flosse has always denied any role in the disappearance of JPK. But justice has been established that when he presided over Polynesia, he had asked his minions to put the former journalist under surveillance.
Judge Redonnet was trying to establish since 2004 in what circumstances, Dec. 15, 1997, former journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud, known for his vitriolic articles at Polynesia against Mr. Flosse, then President of French Polynesia, went missing, at the age of 37 years. At that time, he was not a journalist but worked with Boris Léontieff, an opponent of Mr Flosse, who also died in suspicious circumstances in 2002.
A VERY WET NIGHT
At night, JPK left his home without explanation, before disappearing.
First accepted, a su***de theory has given way to that of political assassination, when in October 2004 a former GIP agent Vetea Guilloux asserted that JPK was killed by his former colleagues.
But Vetea Guilloux recanted, and some inconsistencies in his story stripped him credibility. Temporarily.
Since November 26, 2012 in the judge's chambers, Vetea Guilloux, reiterated, in great detail, his original charges, this time backed up by other witnesses. Mr. Guilloux described a very sloshy evening at the headquarters of GIP in late December 1997. Besides himself, four GIP men were present: Tutu Manate, Tino Mara, Vetea Cadousteau and Firmin Hauata.
The last two are dead. Hauata Firmin in 2002, in Tonga, officially of cardiac arrest. Regarding Vetea Cadousteau; he succumbed to a fall January 24, 2004, but the coroner found a "occipital hematoma" consistent with blows to the head.
On the evening of December 2007, Tino Mara, tipsy, would tell Vetea Guilloux: "He told me 'Tera pua'a mai afai i tai', referring to JPK, that is to say that he was taken off for questioning. (...) He told me that it was not to kill but to scare him. After three immersions, he was left in agony." JPK was beateb on a kau, a small boat, before being drowned.
Mr. Manate also poured out to Vetea Guilloux that "Tutu Manate then told them to call Rere [Puputauki]. Rere told them to dump him [JPK], that he should not be the bring to the hospital."
At his hearing, Vetea Guilloux explained why he had retracted his testimony almost nine years ago. On October 14, 2004, while he was in custody, he was allegedly threatened by Manate and Mara, two of about thirty thugs under Mr Flosse.
"The policemen went out to smoke their ci******es, they left me alone with Tino and Tutu" is he remembered.
Asked the judge Redonnet; "If you changed your version of the story, is it because you were afraid of them?"
"Yes I was scared," confirmed the witness for whom "the police were there to cover up the old [Flosse] affair."
However, Mr Guilloux has insisted he did not think Mr Flosse is the sponsor of the assassination of JPK: "He says he simply told Rere: 'He pi**es me off, take care of it' and he is not aware of what then happened."
How credible are new allegations from Vetea Guilloux?
Investigators have already verified that the then GIP was well equipped small aluminum boats, which could leave the port of Papeete on December 15, 1997. And at that time, Manate and Mara had cell phones, so they could contact their leader, Mr. Puputauki. Besides, there have recently been numerous eyewitness accounts.
"FEAR OF RETALIATION"
For example one - also received November 26, 2012 - Sandy Guilloux, father of Vetea Guilloux and former number 2 of GIP, who one day in 2003, heard Manate Tutu say: "Listen, Chief, do not worry my loyalty to the service is there, remember the popa'a [European] that has been bashed", a direct allusion to JPK.
Sandy Guilloux asserted he went far to protect his son; "I feared for his situation, given that it was Flosse who was president, I was afraid of retaliation."
Other recent evidence is from Leon Teariki, who remembers during a religious festival, one night in December 2006, that his friend Jack Roomataaroa assured him in the presence of several witnesses, that Tino Mara was also in the kau the night of the JPK disappearance.
On 29 November 2012, Leon Teariki told Tino that Mara revealed to the mother of Mr. Roomataaroa that "it was surely on the boat, they were at least four people with Jean-Pascal
Couraud. (...) They have boarded a boat, as if wanting to recover something, they pushed his head into the water to encourage him to say where it was", implying that the squad was looking for documents.
"When they realized that the guy was inert, they called someone on the phone to ask what should be done." If Leon Teariki ommits where the call originated from, he emphasises that, in any case, "the order came to 'tutau', that is to say drop him, like ballast.
Questioned by the judge, November 27, 2012, Rere Puputauki tried to claim Manate and Mara innocent of the JPK death, in these terms: "They do not have enough courage to do that, they do not think that way, they are just not people who can do that."
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