Speight Back in Fiji Jail as High Court Steps In
September 5, 2000 - 0:0
SUVA Fiji coup leader George Speight was sent back to prison on Monday to wait for a higher court to decide whether he has immunity against charges of treason. Speight and 16 key aides looked shocked as Chief Magistrate Salesi Temo, who had been expected to set a date when the treason trial could begin, ordered their continued detention so that the High Court could decide the validity of the immunity decree.
Speight and some of his co-accused had arrived from the prison island of Nukulau carrying suitcases in the apparent expectation they would be released, Australian Broadcasting Corp radio said.
"The court is willing to refer this immunity issue to the High Court...as soon as possible," Temo said. The High Court will rule on the immunity decree on Friday. Temo said Speight's group would then reappear in the magistrates court on September 15 to learn of the impact that decision would have on the treason charges they face.
Speight and his cohorts were offered immunity in July in exchange for the release of Fiji Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and other politicians that the rebels had held captive since May in the name of indigenous rights. But the military says the rebels broke one of the terms of the immunity by failing to return all the weapons they stole. The military has lodged court documents saying 27 weapons are missing.
Australia Warns Fiji Temo gave lawyers working for the accused 28 days to appeal the decision for the High Court to take up the issue of immunity.
Temo said High Court Judge Peter Surman, in a letter on Friday, had ordered him not to make any ruling on the immunity decree.
"The magistrates' courts in Fiji are hereby directed to refrain from making any further orders relating to the purported immunity of persons from prosecution in connection with the immunity decree or any related decrees," Surman said in the letter to Temo. Australia earlier warned it would regard any move to drop the treason charges against Speight and his men as regrettable.
"I think what George Speight did in taking the prime minister and the cabinet hostage in the Fiji Parliament was a grotesque thing for anybody to do -- a terrible trampling of democracy and democratic institutions," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said. "And for him just to be let off scot free would be something that we would deeply regret," Downer told Australian Broadcasting Corp television before Speight's court appearance in Suva. Speight plunged Fiji into crisis when he led gunmen into Fiji's Parliament and took Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian leader, hostage in a bid to end the political influence of the country's economically powerful Indian minority.
(Reuter)
Speight and some of his co-accused had arrived from the prison island of Nukulau carrying suitcases in the apparent expectation they would be released, Australian Broadcasting Corp radio said.
"The court is willing to refer this immunity issue to the High Court...as soon as possible," Temo said. The High Court will rule on the immunity decree on Friday. Temo said Speight's group would then reappear in the magistrates court on September 15 to learn of the impact that decision would have on the treason charges they face.
Speight and his cohorts were offered immunity in July in exchange for the release of Fiji Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and other politicians that the rebels had held captive since May in the name of indigenous rights. But the military says the rebels broke one of the terms of the immunity by failing to return all the weapons they stole. The military has lodged court documents saying 27 weapons are missing.
Australia Warns Fiji Temo gave lawyers working for the accused 28 days to appeal the decision for the High Court to take up the issue of immunity.
Temo said High Court Judge Peter Surman, in a letter on Friday, had ordered him not to make any ruling on the immunity decree.
"The magistrates' courts in Fiji are hereby directed to refrain from making any further orders relating to the purported immunity of persons from prosecution in connection with the immunity decree or any related decrees," Surman said in the letter to Temo. Australia earlier warned it would regard any move to drop the treason charges against Speight and his men as regrettable.
"I think what George Speight did in taking the prime minister and the cabinet hostage in the Fiji Parliament was a grotesque thing for anybody to do -- a terrible trampling of democracy and democratic institutions," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said. "And for him just to be let off scot free would be something that we would deeply regret," Downer told Australian Broadcasting Corp television before Speight's court appearance in Suva. Speight plunged Fiji into crisis when he led gunmen into Fiji's Parliament and took Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian leader, hostage in a bid to end the political influence of the country's economically powerful Indian minority.
(Reuter)