{"id":502891,"date":"2022-02-08T03:53:13","date_gmt":"2022-02-08T03:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/?p=69862"},"modified":"2022-02-08T03:53:13","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T03:53:13","slug":"temaru-defence-controversy-in-radio-tefana-political-case-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/02\/08\/temaru-defence-controversy-in-radio-tefana-political-case-revisited\/","title":{"rendered":"Temaru defence controversy in Radio Tefana political case revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/international\/pacific-news\/\">RNZ Pacific<\/a><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Investigators in French Polynesia have reassessed their case against the pro-independence leader Oscar Manutahi Temaru, who has challenged the seizure of his US$100,000 savings.<\/p>\n<p>The money was taken at the behest of the French prosecutor as part of a probe into the community radio station funding of Temaru&#8217;s defence in a trial in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>The highest court in France rejected the move and ordered the investigators to again make the case for seizing the funds.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/20181010-france-sued-crimes-over-nuclear-tests-polynesia-leader\"><strong>READ MORE:\u00a0<\/strong> France sued for &#8216;crimes&#8217; over nuclear tests: Polynesia leader<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/?s=Radio+tefana\">Other reports on the Radio Tefana controversy<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>According to <em>Tahiti-infos<\/em>, a decision is due on March 8.<\/p>\n<p>The probe into the defence funding was launched after the criminal court in Pape&#8217;ete had given Temaru a suspended prison sentence and a US$50,000 fine.<\/p>\n<p>He was found to have benefitted from the funding arrangement for Radio Tefana, which the court said amounted to &#8220;undue influence&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Temaru was implicated as the mayor of Faa&#8217;a whose administration paid for the community radio station, which in its turn was fined US$1 million.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Defence wanted case thrown out<\/strong><br \/>\nThe defence wanted the case to be thrown out, saying the prosecution failed to cite a single incident of propaganda on behalf of Temaru&#8217;s Tavini Huiraatira party.<\/p>\n<p>At the time, Temaru said the real reason for his conviction was that in the eyes of France he had &#8220;committed treason&#8221; by taking French presidents to the International Criminal Court over the nuclear weapons tests.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_48779\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-48779\" style=\"width: 680px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-48779 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Oscar-Temaru-Webinar-SFU-PMC-680wide.jpg\" alt=\"Oscar Temaru\" width=\"680\" height=\"494\" srcset=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Oscar-Temaru-Webinar-SFU-PMC-680wide.jpg 680w, https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Oscar-Temaru-Webinar-SFU-PMC-680wide-300x218.jpg 300w, https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Oscar-Temaru-Webinar-SFU-PMC-680wide-324x235.jpg 324w, https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Oscar-Temaru-Webinar-SFU-PMC-680wide-578x420.jpg 578w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-48779\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Faa&#8217;a mayor and nuclear-free campaigner Oscar Manutahi Temaru during a zoom conference at Auckland University of Technology in 2020 &#8230; \u201cThe two issues are tied &#8211; nuclear testing and our freedom.\u201d Image: PMC screenshot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In court, Temaru asked for the appeal case to be heard after the French presidential election, saying he feared there could be political interference in the judicial process.<\/p>\n<p>He suggested as a date for the appeal court sitting June 29, 2022, which he said was the anniversary date of French Polynesia&#8217;s annexation by France, but the court rejected his suggestion and set March 22 as the start date for the week-long trial.<\/p>\n<p><i><em>This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.<\/em><\/i><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2022\/02\/08\/temaru-defence-controversy-in-radio-tefana-political-case-revisited\/\">Asia Pacific Report<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RNZ Pacific Investigators in French Polynesia have reassessed their case against the pro-independence leader Oscar Manutahi Temaru, who has challenged the seizure of his US$100,000 savings. The money was taken at the behest of the French prosecutor as part of a probe into the community radio station funding of Temaru\u2019s defence in a trial in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3350,11189,41961,41962,5,694,3049,94,1225,41724,358,12,431,367,14,41963,368,696,4654,31224],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502891"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502891"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":502997,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502891\/revisions\/502997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}