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Fiji's interim finance minister Mahendra Chaudry says he will sue the Fiji Times for $F1 billion ($830 million) for defamation, the newspaper reported.
Chaudhry, who was prime minister for a year in 1999 before he was overthrown in a coup in 2000, says he will sue the Rupert Murdoch News Corp owned newspaper.
The Fiji Times, along with rival the Fiji Sun, has recently been publishing details of Chaudhry's tax records and alleging irregularities.
The Fiji Sun's Australian-born publisher, Russell Hunter, was thrown out of the country last week for publishing the information.
In a statement through his lawyer, GP Lal, Chaudhry says the newspaper has been defaming his reputation.
Lal says papers will name other people in the Fiji Times who he says have defamed Chaudhry and are believed to be involved in a conspiracy to damage their client with a view to weakening the military government which was installed following a coup in December 2006.
Fiji Times Editor-in-Chief Netani Rika rejected the suggestion that the aim of the newspaper was to run Mr Chaudhry's story as a conspiracy to weaken the interim Government.
"We are the free press, doing our jobs as Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama promised he would let us do.
"We do not take political positions. But many of the things we report will not please those in power.
"That is a hazard of our business which we accept.
"But that does not mean we are conspiring against the Government," he told the Fiji Times website.
- NZPA
