French Polynesia’s pro-independence leader and mayor of Faa’a, Oscar Temaru, has been held for questioning over the funding of his defence in a 2019 trial.
Tahiti-infos reports that he and deputy mayor Robert Maker were questioned for six hours.
This comes amid an investigation into alleged abuse of public funds because the Faa’a Council had paid for Temaru’s defence.
- READ MORE: The judgment of Tahiti’s Oscar Temaru – a neocolonial sense of déjà-vu — Ena Manuireva
- Other Oscar Temaru reports
He had been convicted of exerting undue influence and was given a suspended prison sentence as well as a US$50,000 fine.
The conviction will be appealed and is due to be heard in court in August.
As part of the probe into the defence spending in 2020, the prosecution ordered the seizure of Temaru’s personal savings of US$100,000.
The investigation is now under the control of a special trans-regional jurisdiction in Paris specialising in financial fraud, since the start of 2022, due to the complexity of the case.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
APR editor | Radio Free (2022-05-26T22:15:39+00:00) Tahitian pro-independence leader Temaru detained over funding. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2022/05/26/tahitian-pro-independence-leader-temaru-detained-over-funding/
Please log in to upload a file.
There are no updates yet.
Click the Upload button above to add an update.