The Pacific Freedom Forum has called on France to release top-secret state documents pertinent to the 1997 disappearance of a French Polynesian journalist, Jean-Pascal Couraud.
His body has never been found, and although three men have been accused of kidnapping that led to his death, the matter has never gone to court.
Grave of Jean-Pascal Couraud in Punaauia, Tahiti Photo: RNZI Walter Zweifel
The journalist was reportedly under surveillance of the intelligence service of the then president Gaston Flosse.
The three suspect were members of the president's militia.
In 2009, the French national defence commission refused to declassify three secret service documents requested by the judge in French Polynesia investigating the disappearance.
The PFF Co-Chair Monica Miller says until the files are released, the French state must be considered a suspect in this case.
