Gaston Flosse ... political supremo in Tahiti for more than two decades. Photo: Nouvelobs

Pacific.Scoop
By Oceania Flash in Pape’ete

French Polynesia’s veteran politician and former President Gaston Flosse, whose immunity as a senator was lifted last week, has been taken into custody under heavy police guard after a three-hour interview with an investigating judge, local media report.

On Tuesday last week, the French Senate, which had already received two requests to have Flosse’s immunity lifted, finally gave its approval to strip the former President of his protection as an MP.

The request came from investigating judges Philippe Stelmach and Jean-François Redonnet, who, over the past six months, have intensified their judicial investigation into a number of cases, including some involving corruption.

In the past months, as part of the judicial investigation, 78-year-old Flosse has been summoned and heard several times before Stelmach and Redonnet.

After a three-hour interview behind closed doors with judge Stelmach, this week, Flosse emerged from the courthouse in the capital Pape’ete, only to be escorted into a police vehicle en route to the small prison of Nuutania.

The roads leading to the jail house had been closed to traffic for the occasion, French Overseas Network RFO’s Télé-Polynésie reported.

Destruction of evidence
Stelmach later confirmed that Flosse was to be placed under “temporary detention” for charges of passive corruption, embezzlement of public funds and destruction of evidence.

Outside the courthouse, throughout the day, close to 500 militants and sympathisers had camped, all dressed in white, in a sign of mourning, to hold what they termed an “ecumenical service” and provide support for the embattled leader.

Among those were Edouard Fritch, currently president-delegate of the Tahoeraa Huiraatira and also Flosse’s son-in-law.

“This is to show (him) we are grateful for all that he did. What you have here is a lot of people praying during the hard times he is facing”, Fritch said.

Other former members of previous Flosse-led governments, among numerous members of the general public, were seen holing the impromptu vigil.

Flosse’s two lawyers, Jean-Yves Leborgne and François Quinquis, who have flown back to French Polynesia, now have four days to lodge the necessary instruments requesting their client’s release, possibly on bail.

Flosse, more than 20 years ago, created the pro-French Tahoeraa Huiraatira party.

Since he engaged into politics in the 1970s, Flosse has always been closely associated with veteran politician and leader Jacques Chirac, who later became the French President (1995-2007).

The ‘OPT affair’
One of the cases currently being investigated is directly related to French Polynesia’s Office of Post and Telecom (OPT) and is therefore dubbed the “’OPT affair”.

Under the same investigation carried out by Stelmach and Redonnet, several other prominent politicians (including another former President, Gaston Tong Sang) have also been heard n the past few months.

Gaston Flosse’s personal assistant Melba Ortas was early July placed in custody as part of the current judicial enquiry into Flosse’s affairs.

While Melba Ortas has since been released, several others are still remanded at the Nuutania prison in the outskirts of Pape’ete.

Also, since July, a French investigation special squad raided and searched Flosse’s Tahoeraa Huiraatira political party offices several times.

Since then, police have also raided the offices of two banks, Flosse’s lawyer and Flosse’s party headquarters in Pape’ete and retrieved accounts details belonging to Gaston Flosse.

Other prominent Tahiti politicians, including former OPT Chairpersons, are also alleged to have received lesser amounts in cash during the same period.

The ‘sushi affair’
Late October, the French Constitutional Council denied another request to have Gaston Flosse stripped off his status of elected Member of Parliament, arguing that all judicial avenues had not yet been exhausted.

The case related this time to a post-electoral party organised by Flosse and his Tahoeraa Huiraatira party on electoral night, on May 23, 2004.

Flosse, who had until then been French Polynesia’s President for over twenty years, lost the elections on that night, but left the caterers’ bill to his successor, Oscar Temaru, who later refused to pay the catering bill and put the matter before the courts.

Pape’ete’s correctional tribunal in February this year, as a result, found Flosse guilty of misappropriating over 20,000 US dollars in catering bills, in what has since been referred to as the “sushi affair”.

In handing out the ruling, the tribunal said the party had been financed by public funds whereas in was in fact deemed to be a “private” function.

In a first appeal ruling, late September, Flosse was sentenced to one year suspended jail, one year of ineligibility and a 12,000 US dollar fine after he was found guilty of misappropriation of funds.

A second appeal has since been lodged before the French “Cour de Cassation” (the third resort tribunal in the French judicial system) and is not expected to be heard before next year, even though the tribunal, in delivering the sentence last month, had argued that the sentence was to be “temporarily executed” with immediate effect.

“Until the ruling from the (appeal) tribunal has been pronounced, (the Constitutional Council) postpones any decision on the matter”, the French top tribunal said.

Lost mandate
The request, initially lodged by Tahiti-based French investigating judges Redonnet and Stelmach, had been relayed to the Constitutional Council by French justice minister Michèle Alliot-Marie.

It sought to effectively pronounce that as a result of the September 28, 2009 sentence, Flosse automatically had lost his mandate as a Senator of the French Republic.

The French Constitutional Council, in a release, then said that under the current fifth Constitution (enacted in 1958), it had only been presented with such request 20 times, but that every time, the case related to an MP whose judicial avenues had all been exhausted.

In Flosse’s case, the difference was that the sentenced had now been appealed.

Earlier this year, Flosse also publicly commented that in his view, there was a concerted effort from Paris to “kill” him, at least politically.

Lawsuit threats
Coinciding with the intensifying legal developments, local media have also increased coverage over Flosse’s alleged affairs.

The daily Les Nouvelles de Tahiti was even threatened by Flosse with a defamation lawsuit which never eventuated.

Flosse was reacting to a series of published articles alleging a “Flosse system” and that, during his time as President of French Polynesia (for most of the 20 years preceding his electoral loss in 2004), would have set up an intricate network of bribery and cronyism going as far as setting up its private intelligence service.

“If Paris says Flosse has to be killed, they will kill him”

Earlier in July this year, after a four-hour police search at his party’s premises, Flosse said: “If Paris says (Flosse) has to be killed, they will kill him”.

The latest police and judiciary actions are part of at least one inquest, into the affairs of the Office and Post and Telecommunications (OPT) public entity and a series of contracts granted to a private company to take care of the phonebook, including its printing and financing through announcers.

Earlier this year, in April, Flosse was also under the judiciary spotlight, this time for allegedly setting up a private intelligence agency called the “studies and documentation service”.

Under this investigation, Flosse is also facing charges of obstructing the course of justice.

‘Fictitious jobs’
Local tribunal are also expected to hand down their verdict later this month as part of other cases, including alleged “fictitious jobs” which in effect meant that dozens of persons, under the veteran leader’s administration, were part of the payroll of public or semi-public entities.

The irregularities were highlighted three years ago by an Auditor General report into the way the Flosse administration was being run under his presidency.

Les Nouvelles has also persistently alleged that in the OPT case, between 1993 and 2005, Flosse would have received the equivalent of 1.7 million US dollars (145 million French Pacific Francs, CFP) in “brown envelopes”, containing cash and hand-delivered to him by his personal assistant Melba Ortas.

The envelopes, effectively kickbacks, were said to be coming from the “2H” company (which was granted the local phone directory market) and its then CEO, a Hubert Haddad.

Source: Oceania Flash