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Graham
Cleghorn….victim of injustice in |
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Convicted Cleghorn, 58, is
serving 20 years in 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
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