Court rules in favour of French Polynesia's president

Transcript

The French Polynesian president Gaston Flosse has been given a reprieve after a ruling by a Papeete court.

The Court Of Appeal has upheld his challenge to a five-year prison sentence and a 110-thousand US dollar fine for corruption involving the French advertising executive Hubert Haddad.

The president's lawyers argued the accusations against him were too imprecise and the appeal court has now declared the earlier verdict null and void.

As the editor of Tahiti Pacifique explains, the case revolves around two million US dollars in kickbacks over 12 years to Mr Flosse and his party in return for the advertising executive Mr Haddad getting public sector contracts.

ALEX DU PREL: Now the instruction, the magistrate who did the instruction has to rewind the act of accusation and then there will be another trial and then if he gets condemned in the new trial, there will be another appeal and then if he gets condemned in the appeal he will go to the Court de Cassation,  which is kind of the French Supreme Court. So you can go another three or four years and as Mr Flosse is 83 years old, I wish him a long life, but I don't know if he will still be here.

SALLY ROUND:  And of course Mr Flosse is still facing other court procedures isn't he? How significant was this win for him?

AP: Well, this win was very significant because it is the only case where it has been proven that he has personally profited from the money that was embezzled. On the other ones, it is kind of vague, it's never been proven but in this case it had been proven that he personally cashed the money and quite a sum - I think it is about one point six million New Zealand dollars or even more.

SR: So it is quite difficult to understand then that if it was proven in court, in the criminal court, how the court of appeal has declared that that decision, that verdict, was null and void?

AP: I don't think it has much to do with justice. Just all the trials that Mr Flosse had to go through have taken 10,12, 14, years sometimes. Why? Because he has lawyers and every action that the inquiry does, they appeal and they go to de Cassation and so on and so on. It is permanent brick walling everytime, everytime. Now it works again and the problem with it is that the credibility of justice, which even the president of the court admitted, the credibility of the justice is not very high anymore, at least in Tahiti.