Motives of French in Moves Against Temaru Highlighted

French Polynesia’s pro-independence leader and veteran mayor of Faaa Oscar Temaru has continued his indefinite hunger strike over his treatment by the French judiciary.

Backed by supporters, Mr Temaru was again outside the courts today demanding to see the prosecutor Herve Leroy over last week’s seizure of his savings.

Mr Temaru found out while out shopping that Mr Leroy had arranged to take $US100,000 (FJ$ 215,517.20) from his bank account amid a court case over his alleged exerting of undue influence.

While refusing to see the mayor, the prosecutor met Mr Temaru’s lawyer who established there was no court order to seize the money. The prosecutor has since got a court order. The lawyer said such pre-emptive action appeared only justifiable if there was a flight risk. Parliamentarian Moetai Brotherson said a complaint was to be lodged against the prosecutor for exceeding his powers, describing his move as scandalous.

Last September, Mr Temaru was given a suspended six-month prison sentence over funding arrangements for Radio Tefana, a community broadcaster in Faaa.

Mr Temaru was convicted for exercising undue influence because the court found that Radio Tefana benefited his political party.

The case is being appealed and the defence wants the case to be thrown out, saying the prosecution failed to cite a single incident of propaganda. Mr Temaru said the real reason for his conviction was in the eyes of France he committed treason by taking French presidents to the International Criminal

Court over nuclear weapons tests and accusing them of crimes against humanity.

The former board chair of Radio Tefana, Vito Maamaatuaiahutapu, said it would have been easier to blow up the station with dynamite instead of having a trial.

The new chair, Heinui Le Caill, said the station’s $US1 million (FJ$2.15m) fine was five times its budget, meaning the station was unable to pay and would have to close.

After the Faaa council agreed to cover Mr Temaru’s legal costs, a fresh Police probe was started this year, alleging that this amounted to an abuse of public funds.

His lawyers were being investigated for benefiting from the alleged abuse of public funds. Another lawyer Thibault Millet said he was shocked the defence was being implicated while the appeal of last year’s verdict was still pending. He said it amounted to a massive violation of the right to a defence to interrogate lawyers in an ongoing case. Mr Temaru said the harassment began in 2013 after the UN General Assembly reinscribed French Polynesia on the UN decolonisation list.

However France ignored the decision and refused to engage in any decolonisation process, describing it instead as a glaring interference. With Mr Temaru on hunger strike for a third day, Mr Brotherson warned that there would be nobody to restrain radical elements if Mr Temaru were to fall into a coma. Mr Temaru quoted Martin Luther King, saying ‘if you’re not ready to die for your country, you don’t deserve to live there’.