from Geoff Coggan * Last night, at about 11 p.m. Ralph Schoenman, Secretary General of the International War Crimes Tribunal, was abducted by the French Authoritigs while on his way from the Hotel to the Restaurant at Orly Airport,Paris, With five colleagues he was in Paris en route for Phnom Penh and Hanoi as a member of the second investigating team collecting evidence for the Tribunal. At first, his colleagues suspected nothing, thinking that he must have been called to the telephone, but they later discovered the police in the act of searching the luggage in his hotel bedroom, on the pretext of searching for his passport. This action is astonishing, as Mr. Schoenman had entered France regularly and without the slightest trouble, showing his passport both at the airport entry point (passport control) and also at any hotel where hasregistered. The police refused to answer any questions as to his whereabouts. No-one was allowed to see him, or even to speak to him by telephone. The serious situation was immediately made known to Maitre Gisele Halimi and Laurent Schwartz in Paris and Bertrand Russell in Wales, Protests and enquiries by these three throughout the night produced similar lack of co-operation, Maitre Halimi, as Ralph Schoenman's lawyer, took her enquiries to top level in the Ministry of the Interior, but without results. Ralph Schoenman was kept for a whole night incommunicado, This abduction of an American citizen, who was in France for one night on his way to Cambodia, and who holds the position of Secretary General of the International \ar Crimes Tribunal, is particularly hard to explain in the light of the declared foreign policy of the French Government. We protest vigorously and appeal to the French people to make everyeffort to redress this illegal action, and to continue to support the International War Crimes Tribunal. At the Press Conference held at the Orly Airport at 9 o'clock this morning, Representatives of the Tribunal in Paris were informed by the Police de l'Air that Ralph Schoenman had been "forbidden entry to Franee as the result of a request originating from London, perhaps from an American source." It was stated that the action of the police was "only in response to a particular request and did not represent any formal decision by the French authorities." They added that Rath Schoenman would be allowed to continue on his scheduled trip to Cambodia. And he left on the Air France flight to Fhnom Fenh at 11 a.m. this morning. The second team will be investigating border violations in Cambodia, and interviewing victims and witnesses of civilian bombardment from the liberated zones of South Vietnam, The members of the team, which is expected to stay in Asia for 3 or 4 weeks, are Ralph Schoenman, Lawrence Daly, General Secretary of the Scottish Union of Mineworkers; Dr.Behar, doctor of medicine from France; Carol Brightman, editor of Viet Report and a student of chemical warfare, United States; Tariq Ali, former president of the Oxford Union, from Pakistan; Dr.Gustavo Tolentino, a Dominican citizen from Toronto, where he is a physician specialising in radiology. He is a member of the New Democratic Party (Canada's Labour Party).
* Geoff Coggan is Press Officer of the International War Crimes Tribunal.