Contact
Newsagent
LoginFlosse’s lawyers put France 3 TV chief in dock over ‘defamation’
Gaston Flosse ... political supremo in Tahiti for more than two decades. Photo: PMC
Pacific.Scoop
Pacific Media Watch
The head of the television channel France 3, Patrick de Carolis, has been summoned to appear in a Paris criminal court in January for allegedly defaming French Polynesia’s veteran politician Gaston Flosse, Radio NZ International reports.
The information has been released by Flosse’s political party in Papeete.
The case relates to the documentary Death in the Tropics (Mort sous les tropiques) shown in June last year about the 1997 disappearance of a Tahitian newspaper editor and journalist, Jean-Pascal Couraud.
After the programme was aired, Flosse claimed it had violated the basic principles of democracy.
The television programme’s presenter, Elise Lucet, and a reporter, Magali Serre, have been summoned for alleged complicity to defame Flosse, Radio NZ International reports.
An investigation into Couraud’s disappearance was launched five years ago after a former spy of Flosse’s now disbanded GIP militia claimed Couraud had been kidnapped and was drowned off Tahiti.
This comes as former Tahitian president Flosse has been in detention in Pape’ete for two weeks as part of a corruption probe.
He was to be set free now but the prosecution has appealed against his release as several joint interrogations with other suspects are still pending.
The controversial documentary, Mort sous les tropiques, can be seen on the Pacific Media Watch database: http://kauri.aut.ac.nz:8080/dspace/handle/123456789/983
Source: 6556 Pacific Media Watch
Original RNZ url
