Jailed NZ'er in Cambo denies Guilt

[Encore]

NZPA

 

Cleghorn's Cambodia home 'filled with girls'

 

06.03.06 1.00pm

 

Convicted New Zealand rapist Graham Cleghorn filled his home with young girls, says the Cambodian group accused of bribing teenagers to falsely testify against him.

 

Cleghorn, 58, is serving 20 years in Phnom Penh's Prey Sar prison for raping five teenage girls in what his lawyer Greg King calls a farcical trial.

 

Cleghorn maintains his innocence, saying he was set up by the Cambodian Women's Crisis Centre.

 

The centre hit back today with claims in The Dominion Post newspaper that the former Petone man and his wife, Buot Touer, found poor village girls to live with them as house servants.

 

It said some of the 10 servants were made to massage Cleghorn at night and five testified that he raped them.

 

Cleghorn claimed a corrupt judge persuaded his sister, head of the centre, to offer teenage girls US$10,000 ($15,227) to press rape charges against him.

 

He said they were girls he had fired for sneaking out at night.

 

But in emails the centre claimed the complaints were genuine and said the centre stood against "a tidal wave of sexual abuse of children and of abuse of women and children in general."

 

It said the complaints, some as young as 11, were among 10 girls who lived with Cleghorn.

 

"Why did he need 10 domestic helpers (when) one or two are enough for serving him and his (wife)?", the centre said.

 

It said Cleghorn's wife regularly took the girls to clinics for injections to prevent pregnancy.

 

Touer was given a three-year suspended sentence for conspiracy, after the pair were found guilty in February 2004.

 

Meanwhile, Cleghorn has told the newspaper he has lost more than 10kg in jail, has chest pain and all his teeth have rotted since beginning his sentence.

 

He shares a cell with about two dozen other men and sleeps on a cement floor.

 

"All I am asking for is two things: a fair trial where my witnesses can be heard and for the New Zealand Government to request an independent investigation into the Cambodian Women's Crisis Centre which brought the charges against me and took my life away," he told the newspaper.

 

While the prison staff were "good and fair", the food was inedible and there were outbreaks of diseas es from scabies to malaria, he said.

 

If he was guilty he would deserve the conditions, but he was not, he said.

 

"If my government cannot get me a fair hearing, I will not spend the rest of my life here in this jail. I would want to die, and I would do that job myself. Wouldn't you?"

 

The New Zealand Government has raised concerns at the way Cleghorn's trial, which took just nine hours, was handled.

 

An appeal was later held without Cleghorn's knowledge.

 

Foreign Affairs officials have met with Cambodian officials to express New Zealand concerns.

 

- NZPA

[..]

Below the fold is a cut-n-paste stating the other point of view about this matter. I am not endorsing either side, but as I said before, some NGO have been proven to trump up accusations in order to get more money, of which they pocket more than they use to help others.

 

Cheers,

SD

 

++++++++++++

 

New Zealand responds to plight of Cleghorn

 

It has taken us years, but the New Zealand government has finally responded to the plight of Graham Cleghorn locked up in Cambodia. It is now more than time for Australians to wake up and help their own two innocent citizens.

 

It has taken years. Friends brought the Cambodian girls whom he was supposed to have abused hundreds of kilometres from their village to Phnom Penh in the hope that officials and the court would hear their testimony that they had been kidnapped and coerced into making false allegations in return for compensation offered by the ?women?s rights? organization the CWCC. The girls sent us letters and their photographs which were published here and on a special web site set up for them at Ectopia. They wrote to the Prime Minister of Cambodia. They made a protest banner. New Zealander, Graham Cleghorn, was one of three men that the CWCC had coerced them into making allegations against. The other two were Australians Bart Lauwaert, still in prison with Cleghorn, and Clint Betterridge who, after managing to escape from Cambodia, was disgracefully locked up in prison in Australia, where he and his friends have been fighting extradition back to Cambodia. Australia even passed special legislation to allow him to be sent back. We supplied all the evidence of the corruption used against the two Australian men to the Australian government. They ignored it all and kept Clint in prison and did nothing for Bart.

 

Now they have a problem. The New Zealand government has finally accepted the injustice and sent two diplomats to negotiate for Graham to Cambodia. Of great importance is that they and the NZ media have finally acknowledged the girls? retractions and the activities of the (ironically funded by the Australians) CWCC, which sets up foreign men in exchange for foreign donations.

 

On February 18 2006, Graham?s story became the lead in Wellington?s Dominion Post and was lead also on national radio.

 

Graham's story is HERE.

 

Clint's story is HERE.

 

Bart's story is HERE.

 

Here is the Dominion Post story:

 

Girls take back rape allegations

18 February 2006

 

By MATTHEW TORBIT

 

New Zealand diplomats have intervened in the case of a Kiwi man serving 20 years in a Cambodian prison on sex charges ? after the teenage complainants all retracted their evidence against him.?

 

Graham Cleghorn, 55, a former aid worker, was jailed in February 2004 and is being held in Phnom Penh's Prey Sar prison.

 

The New Zealand Government had already raised concerns at the handling of Cleghorn's trial ? which took just nine hours.

He was refused a translator, and denied the right to call his own witnesses and cross-examine prosecution witnesses. Now diplomats have again stepped in after Cleghorn's appeal was conducted without his knowledge.

 

The unsuccessful appeal, secretly held last month in Siam Reap, did not allow Cleghorn to present written statements from all five women he was convicted of raping that state the sex crimes did not happen. Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry spokeswoman Helen Tunnah said the Government had been monitoring Cleghorn's situation since he was jailed, but decided to act after news of the appeal dismissal emerged.

 

The New Zealand ambassador in Bangkok, Peter Rider, had met a representative at Cambodia's embassy this week to outline this country's "grave" concerns about Cleghorn's appeal being heard in his absence.

 

"The ambassador pointed out neither Cleghorn, his lawyer or New Zealand officials had been told the appeal was to be heard and asked for an explanation as to how this came about.

"It was emphasised that this had denied Mr Cleghorn the opportunity to present a case, which breached his right to a fair hearing."

 

Ms Tunnah said embassy staff we are awaiting a response from Cambodian officials. Cleghorn's two daughters have hired prominent Wellington lawyer Greg King, who said he was disgusted at the legal processes surrounding the case. He described the appeal dismissal as a "breach of fundamental natural justice in every sense".

 

Cleghorn had pinned all of his hopes for freedom on the appeal. "And for that now to be dismissed without him knowing, without him being present, without him being represented, is abhorrent."

 

Mr King said his client was a victim of a non-government organisation, the Cambodian Women's Crisis Centre, which was seeking millions of dollars of foreign funding that had been poured into Southeast Asia to stop child prostitution with Western men.

 

"Organisations have popped up to get their hands on this funding, and the way to do this is to catch people involved in the illicit sex trade, which Graham's been caught up in." An excerpt from one of the five teens' statements says: "I swear on oath to help the foreigner Mr. Graham that he has never touched my body."

 

In a statement published on the Internet soon after his conviction, Cleghorn said he was framed by corrupt officials, including Siam Reap District Court judge Ten Senarong who wanted land he owned near the ancient temple Angkor Wat.

When he refused, Judge Senarong's sister Tan Senara, who ran the local office of the crisis centre, began approaching girls in his village offering them US$10,000 each to testify that he had molested them.

 

In October 2003 he was arrested and charged with five counts of rape, as well as unlawful possession of a weapon. About the same time, an Australian and Swiss national were imprisoned in similar circumstances.

 

Bronwyn Sloan, a Cambodian-based Australian, said she visited Cleghorn in prison before he found out the appeal had been thrown out.

 

"He was holding it together but he does have health problems," she said. "But I imagine he will now be totally devastated."

Ms Sloan said Cleghorn arrived in Cambodia in the late 1980s and worked as an aid worker in Cambodia's northern border camps. He formerly lived in Petone.

 

She said Cleghorn's Cambodian wife Der and their six-year-old child were distraught at his treatment.

[Encore]

Hmmm, Hard to know what really happened, is it a matter of who paid the highest bribe/

 

10K US for the girls to accuse him, how much did he pay to get them to retract?

 

Sorry, just cynical.

 

 

 

i hope I never get on the receiving end of this, without having deserved it.

 

If i ever do, i know I would offer any amount to 5 girls for retraction, avoiding many years in a Cambo jail hellhole is worth any money I have.

 

Unfortunately, anything is for sale in Cambo.

 

One consideration for anyone thinking of going there for sanuk.