Another missed appeal. Six months and two weeks after the start of the violence in New Caledonia, the independence activist Christian Tein, incarcerated in Mulhouse-Lutterbach (Haut-Rhin), will remain detained in France, the Nouméa Court of Appeal decided this Friday after the invalidation in October of his detention pronounced at first instance.
“Christian Tein is being held in detention in mainland France,” said Pierre Ortet, one of the independence activist's lawyers, at the end of the hearing which was held behind closed doors.
On October 22, the Court of Cassation invalidated the detention of Christian Tein, ordering that this decision be re-examined by an appeal court. The Court had recognized a “break in confidentiality” of exchanges between lawyers and their client, videoconference interviews could be recorded. Another independence activist, Steve Unë, benefited from the same decision.
Both are members of the Field Action Coordination Unit (CCAT), an organization accused by the government of being behind the riots which have ravaged New Caledonia since May, causing 13 deaths and damage estimated at more than two billion euros.
Accused of being one of the thinking heads of this violence, after the attempt to reform the Caledonian electoral body, Christian Tein is indicted for seven counts, in particular complicity in attempted murder, organized gang theft with a weapon, participation in a criminal association with a view to the preparation of 'a crime.
Arrested on June 19, “Bichou”, his nickname, was placed in pre-trial detention and immediately transferred to France on June 23 with six other activists, aboard a specially chartered plane. The Nouméa public prosecutor wanted to continue the investigations “in a calm manner”. Christian Tein has always denied having called for violence.
Proof that the activists have not forgotten this: last August, the man who considers himself to be a political prisoner was appointed head of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front, the FLNKS.
