RSF protests over lack of action over 'JPK'

Reporters Sans Frontieres has called on the French government to renew efforts to find out what happened to Jean-Pascal Couraud ("JPK"), editor of the French Polynesia daily Les Nouvelles de Tahiti, who vanished 10 years ago on 15 December 1997. He was allegedly assassinated. RSF said:
Recent developments suggest the enquiry into his presumed death can now move forward. It is urgent, morally and legally, that all elements in the case are revealed. The French authorities must not provide an argument for those who think French Polynesia is a place where shady deals are done or the law can be flouted.
Along with JPK’s family and his support committee, we hope that investigations will be above board and that his journalistic work will
be considered a possible motive for his disappearance.
Couraud was looking into reported transfers of money to former French President Jacques Chirac to a Japanese bank account through one in
French Polynesia. The sensitive nature of this and JPK’s disappearance
make it even more imperative to discover the truth.
The civil parties in the case finally managed in September to
get a copy of the case-file which strengthened their belief that JPK
was murdered. The Papeete investigating magistrate agreed on 20
November to add to the case-file items seized at the home of Gen
Philippe Rondot in connection with the Clearstream corruption case and
Chirac’s Japanese bank account, and also to take Judge Philippe
Stelmach off the case.
The lawyer for the civil parties, Max Gatti, says the discovery on Gen Rondot’s computer hard-drive of two documents about a bank account of former French Polynesia President Gaston Flosse proves that the material JPK said he had was a threat.
JPK’s former lawyer, Jean-Dominique Des Arcis, said in May that the journalist had details of transfers of funds between a large French Polynesia firm and a Chirac bank account. The lawyer will get a court hearing on 17 December and the civil parties have been authorised to check whether a link can be made between this material and the lawsuit they filed in 2004 for "murder and accessory to murder".
The French TV station France Inter will show a report on 16 December (in its programme "Interception," from 09:00-10:00) by journalist Benoît Collombat about Couraud’s disappearance called Sharks in Murky Waters.

• RSF background
• Jason Brown's website monitoring JPK developments
• Soutien JPK website