Party backs up claim France targeting Temaru

4:28 pm on 8 December 2018

French Polynesia's pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira Party has reiterated its accusation that France is trying to politically assassinate its leader Oscar Temaru.

Oscar Temaru

Oscar Temaru Photo: RNZI

Last month, he was detained for 12 hours over a public accounts audit of 2009, and in October, Paris declared him ineligible for a year, thereby forcing him out of the territorial assembly after more than three decades.

The party said Mr Temaru was being punished for referring French presidents to the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity over France's nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific.

However, both the French High Commissioner and the public prosecutor firmly rejected the Tavini claim that there was a plot to sideline Mr Temaru.

The Tavini has now hit back, releasing the expertise which cleared Mr Temaru in October over his election campaign account.

It says there was a 0.01 percent chance that the expertise would be ignored, but France did so in this case.

In its statement, the party says during his detention neither Mr Temaru nor his lawyer were given the documents on which the case against him was being built.

The party says it will continue to denounce the maneuvers of the French state and what it calls the judicial harassment of Mr Temaru.

Tavini releases findings of control commission approving election campaign accounts.

Tavini releases findings of control commission approving election campaign accounts. Photo: Supplied

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