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SUVA - Former coup leader and Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has been ordered not to leave his home during a trial to determine whether he incited a bloody army mutiny in 2000.
Pre-trial arguments began yesterday as speculation continued about a fourth Fiji coup in 20 years over a stand-off between the Government and armed forces chief Commander Frank Bainimarama.
Wearing a grey wool pinstripe sulu skirt and coat with a Remembrance Day poppy in his lapel, Rabuka - a former Army chief - appeared relaxed and chatted amiably before the hearing began in Fiji's Supreme Court.
The court is housed in the old colonial-style parliament building, where the then Colonel Rabuka staged his two coups in 1987 and became the most recognisable face in the South Pacific.
He now faces a possible life sentence because of his alleged role in inciting the unsuccessful mutiny against Commodore Bainimarama at the military's Queen Elizabeth Barracks headquarters, overlooking the capital Suva, on November 2, 2000.
Rabuka has pleaded not guilty.
The mutiny was linked to a coup by armed indigenous nationalists in May 2000 which toppled the Government of Mahendra Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian leader.
Prosecutors allege that on July 4, 2000, and November 2 the same year Rabuka incited Lieutenant-Colonel Viliame Seruvakula to remove Commodore Bainimarama.
Supreme Court judge Justice Gerard Winter altered Rabuka's bail conditions, ordering that he remain at his home 24 hours a day other than to attend court or legal briefings.
He had previously been released on F$1000 ($877) bail and ordered to report to police twice a week.
Justice Winter also ordered Rabuka not to speak to reporters or publish articles during his trial.
The court heard that Lieutenant-Colonel Seruvakula was travelling to Fiji from Afghanistan, where he is stationed with Fijian troops, and was unlikely to be able to give evidence before the end of the week.
Justice Winter ordered that all witnesses be available for the start of the trial on Friday.
Rabuka's defence lawyer Peter Maiden said the trial should not proceed because the events concerned happened more than six years ago.
Further arguments on that will be heard today.
Rabuka was instrumental in crafting a multi-racial constitution, but racial tensions are never far from the surface in Fiji.
Indigenous Fijians, who make up 51 per cent of the 906,000 population, fear the growing political power of ethnic Indians, whose forebears were brought to Fiji to work on British sugar cane farms and who now dominate the economy.
Coup chief
* Fifty-eight-year-old Sitiveni Rabuka led two coups in Fiji in 1987. The first one, in May, overthrew the Indo-Fijian dominated Parliament.
* The second, in September, established a republic.
* In March this year, Rabuka apologised, telling India's Amedhabad Newsline that he regretted his role in the coups, which he described as "democratically wrong".
- REUTERS
