Pacific

Tahiti's OPT case deferred for retesting in September

10:13 am on 11 July 2019

A new date has been set in French Polynesia to hear whether to revive the OPT affair which centres on the territory's biggest case of corruption.

Photo: Facebook/ OPT

Judicial authorities were to review the case yesterday, but several lawyers were absent, forcing the matter to be deferred for a fourth time to be now heard by the end of September.

In 2015, the case was thrown out on appeal over a procedural error, quashing the five-year jail sentences given to a veteran politician Gaston Flosse and a French advertising executive Hubert Haddad.

The court in Papeete had convicted Flosse for taking more than $US2 million in kickbacks for granting public sector contracts to Mr Haddad over a 12-year period until the middle of the last decade.

Flosse had admitted disbursing the money for private expenses.

An order to repay OPT more than $US5 million has also been quashed.

Defence lawyers have been trying to stop a retrial, saying the statute of limitations applied.