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Graham Cleghorn….victim
of injustice in |
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`Let's just hope we can get a
human rights investigation ... We foreigners are so far exempted but he will
get around to us sooner or later.' - Graham Cleghorn
The former Wellington man is
pleading with the New Zealand Government for former governor-general Dame
Silva Cartwright -- who is in Cambodia investigating alleged Khmer Rouge war
crimes -- to visit him in Phnom Penh's Prey Sar jail, which he says breaches
international human rights laws. Cleghorn's In a letter to Mr King, Cleghorn
says more than 1200 inmates had their bare backs whipped with canes last
month after the jail's new director, Mong Kim Heng, ordered that everyone
with a tattoo be flogged. Other prisoners were chained in leg shackles in
darkened "punishment rooms" . Cleghorn, who is serving a 20-year
sentence, said although he had tattoos, foreigners were not beaten or
shackled. They were instead subjected to sleep deprivation. "From November 3 to 19 he
kept the lights off from 6pm to 10pm ... then all lights came on at
midnight so we couldn't sleep," Cleghorn's letter says. Things returned to normal after he
complained to the Red Cross but attempts to have the group investigate the
punishment rooms were thwarted after prison guards emptied them and removed
the shackles before Red Cross representatives arrived. "Let's just hope we can get a
human rights investigation ... We foreigners are so far exempted but he will
get around to us sooner or later." Cleghorn notes that Dame Silvia is in
He wants the former judge to be
contacted so she can investigate the prison claims. His letter was written
shortly before he was back in court on December 8 to appeal his conviction
for raping five girls who worked at his home in Siam Reap. The appeal -- postponed until next
month after the women's group he claims framed him failed to appear --
follows The letter was sent to Mr King by
Bangkok-based consul Lyndal Walker, who visited Cleghorn on December 7. Mr King said |