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Fiji charges 39 soldiers for mutiny
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Posted on Dec 08 2000
By Robert Keith-Reid
AP Writer
SUVA, Fiji (AP) – A judge on Wednesday released on bail four men facing treason charges with coup leader George Speight, a day after military authorities charged 39 soldiers with mutiny for a later uprising.
Speight and an armed gang raided Parliament on May 19, triggering a 56-day hostage standoff that ended when military leaders threw out Fiji’s multiracial constitution and installed a nationalist civilian government. Speight and his key supporters were arrested after the standoff.
At a joint hearing for Speight and nine allies, Chief Magistrate Salesi Temo ruled that there was insufficient evidence to hold four of them and released them on bail of $22, news website www.fijilive.com reported.
Mahendra Chaudhry, deposed as prime minister by Speight’s coup, said Temo’s ruling threatened to make a mockery of Fiji’s justice system.
“As far as I understand, treason is an unbailable offense,” Chaudhry told fijilive.
Speight claimed Chaudhry – Fiji’s first leader from its large ethnic Indian minority – discriminated against indigenous Fijian interests.
New violence erupted Nov. 2, when rebel commandos opened fire on regular troops at barracks in the capital, Suva. Five mutineers and three loyalist soldiers were killed in gunbattles before the mutiny was put down.
The mutineers were members of Fiji’s military commando unit, which formed the armed component of Speight’s May coup. The reason for their uprising is not clear, but military commander Commodore Frank Bainimarama has said it appeared to be connected to the coup.
The army’s director of legal service, Lt. Col. Etueni Caucau, said Tuesday that 39 commandos had been charged with mutiny and murder in connection with the uprising and would be tried in a military court.
Mutiny carries a maximum penalty of death, he said.
