Bribe Allegations Disrupt Trial Of Former Fiji Pm
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday November 15, 2006
IN A DRAMATIC second day of evidence in the trial of the former Fijian prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka, a man was arrested for allegedly trying to bribe an Australian prosecutor outside Suva's High Court and the state's key witness was accused of having an "entirely flawed" memory of key events.
Police outside the court arrested a man, said to be in his 30s, after the prosecutor, Mark Tedeschi, told them the man had approached him during an adjournment and said: "Release Rabuka and you will be paid." Mr Tedeschi is on loan from the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions office for the trial.Rabuka, who staged Fiji's first two coups in 1987, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of attempting to incite a bloody military mutiny in the aftermath of the George Speight coup of May 2000. Lieutenant-Colonel Viliame Seruvakula, then third in command of the military, told the court Rabuka called him several times on July 4 and November 2, 2000, to say he should remove the military commander, Commodore Frank Bainimarama. Prosecutors allege that Rabuka, disillusioned after losing the 1999 elections, coveted the commander's job. Asked whether he recalled any other key events on the day of the first charge - July 4 - Colonel Seruvakula said he did not, to which defence counsel Peter Maiden, SC, replied that the colonel's own soldiers had opened fire that day on a group of George Speight's supporters, wounding eight and killing one of them. "I'm suggesting to you that you are entirely flawed in your memory of the events on 4 July, 2000," Mr Maiden said. The trial continues.
© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald