SUVA - Fiji coup leader George Speight on Tuesday began a life prison term for treason after escaping the hangman's noose, but few in the ethnically divided south pacific nation believe he will spend the rest of his days behind bars, Reuters reported.

Some questioned whether all the key plotters had been caught in the net, with a guilty plea from Speight cutting short further public examination of just what happened during the coup and the high-powered backers he spoke of but never identified.

The Fiji *** Times *** newspaper said in an editorial on Tuesday that Speight's guilty plea meant the truth behind the May 2000 coup that overthrew the country's first ethnic Indian prime minister would never be known.

"The reward for his silence and acquiescence is already a commuted jail sentence. A pardon may come later," it said.

The Fiji post called for the truth to be made public, suggesting the net should be cast much wider than a dozen others prosecuted with Speight, 10 of whom have also pleaded guilty.

"If justice is blind and must be served without fear or favor, then there's a need to find out who Speight's fellow coup plotters were," the newspaper said.

"Why punish Speight and not the other coup plotters, whoever they are?"

Speight, a failed businessman, held Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry hostage for 56 days in the name of indigenous rights.

On Monday, he pleaded guilty to treason and burst into tears as he was sentenced to hang. President Ratu Josefa Iloilo, himself an indigenous Fijian, commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment a few hours later.

**** Out in 2015, or Sooner ****

Lawyers in Fiji say Speight -- arrested after releasing Chaudhry -- could be freed by 2015, although many believe his sentence will be reduced even further.

"He will not be in jail forever," said ethnic Indian carpenter Mikesh Chand, reflecting a belief in Fiji that Speight will serve only a few years in jail.

A presidential pardon, as granted to the leader of two 1987 military coups, Sitiveni Rabuka, is not out of the question.

South pacific political analysts say speight has some powerful supporters among Fiji's chiefs, in Parliament and in the indigenous-dominated military and they expect his life sentence to be reduced.

"Based on the appeals process in Fiji I believe it is an open invitation for a reduced sentence," said Jonathan Frankel, professor in politics at Suva's University of the South Pacific.