Speight on double treason charge

SUVA - Fiji coup leader George Speight has been charged with two counts of treason against former President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara.

One charge of treason and another of conspiring to commit treason were read in the Suva Magistrate's Court.

It was alleged Speight "intended to levy war against His Excellency the President of Fiji, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara."

The charge carries the death penalty, but no one has been executed in Fiji since it became independent from Britain in 1970.

Speight's security adviser, Ilisoni Ligairi, media adviser Joe Nata, political adviser Timoci Silatolu and his younger brother, Jim Speight, were among 10 others also charged with treason.

Speight plunged Fiji into crisis on May 19 when he stormed Parliament, taking the Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, hostage in the name of indigenous Fijian rights.

Mara, whose presidency Speight opposed, stepped aside when martial law was declared on May 29 as violence flared after the invasion of Parliament.

The treason charges were referred for a hearing in Fiji's High Court in four weeks, after which a trial date will be set.

Speight and the other accused will not enter pleas until the hearing.

Earlier, Speight appeared for a bail hearing on five minor charges relating to his raid on Parliament.

The hearing was deferred for a week.

Chief Magistrate Salesi Temo ordered that Speight and 12 key supporters be returned to the prison island of Nukulau, off Suva, until Friday for the bail hearing.

Speight has pleaded not guilty to five charges of firearm offences, illegal assembly and the illegal burial of a slain supporter in the parliamentary grounds.

A trial on these charges will start on September 1.

Speight, who says he was injured in military custody, appeared in court with a small bandage on the back of his head.

He was arrested on July 26 at the start of a military crackdown, during which about 450 of his supporters were arrested.



He and his supporters held Mr Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian Prime Minister, and most of his multiracial cabinet hostage for 56 days in a bid to end the political influence of ethnic Indians.

Indo-Fijians make up 44 per cent of the country's 800,000 population and dominate the important sugar and tourism industries.

Speight won a series of concessions before freeing his hostages.

A military-backed interim Government led by Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase and made up almost entirely of indigenous Fijians will rule for up to three years.

About 300 Speight supporters gathered outside the courthouse in central Suva for the bail hearing yesterday.

The group broke into deafening cheers when Speight and the others were escorted from the building and driven away.

Prime Minister Helen Clark has welcomed the decision to charge Speight and his supporters with treason, saying it is "encouraging."

"It is important that a clear message is sent that displacing a constitutionally elected government at gunpoint is a treasonous act which will be dealt with very severely," she said.

Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff said a treason charge against Speight was absolutely appropriate.

"The treason he committed was the overthrow of a legitimate government on May 19," Mr Goff said in Apia, where he is attending a Pacific Forum meeting.

- NZPA