Ex-Fiji PM Chaudhry arrested - reports

Mahendra Chaudhry in 1999. Photo / NZ Herald

Fiji's military regime has arrested opposition leader and former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry for allegedly breaching public emergency regulations, reports said today.

Chaudhry was taken into custody with five other people on Friday and was expected to face court tomorrow, state broadcaster Radio Fiji and the Fiji Village News website reported.

Fiji Village said Chaudhry was detained for allegedly holding public meetings, outlawed by the Pacific nation's military regime under emergency laws that have been strongly criticised by international rights groups.

It said that police had not publicly revealed the charges against the Fiji Labour Party leader but he was expected in court tomorrow. No-one from Fiji police was immediately available to confirm the reports.

Voreqe Bainimarama, who seized power in a 2006 coup, imposed emergency regulations that ban public meetings when he overturned the constitution in April last year.

Chaudhry became Fiji's first ethnic Indian leader when elected prime minister in 1999. He was overthrown a year later in a coup led by nationalist George Speight.

He is one of the main opposition voices in Fiji, where the media are heavily censored and political parties cannot issue statements seen as destabilising Bainimarama's regime.

The Fiji Times said Chaudhry's arrest followed a meeting with sugar farmers in Rakiraki. It said the former prime minister denied any wrongdoing.

The sugar industry, once a mainstay of Fiji's economy, is a sensitive topic for Bainimarama's government after an attempt to modernise it with new crushing mills backfired and resulted in production collapsing.

Fiji Sugar Corporation chief executive Deo Saran announced his resignation last week in the wake of a $125.64 million annual loss.

Chaudhry's Labour Party was critical of the government's role in the industry in early September, prompting the information ministry to accuse it of making "mischievous" statements and to demand all future statements on its website be submitted for official approval.

The party later said the dispute had been resolved amicably but nothing has been posted on the website since.

In July, Chaudhry appeared in court on a raft of charges unrelated to his latest alleged offence, including money laundering and tax evasion.

The charges, dating back to just before the 2006 coup, alleged he held up to $228,480 in an Australian bank account and made a $35,900 payment to his daughter in Australia without following proper procedures.

Bainimarama last year scrapped a promise to hold elections in 2009 and instead overturned the constitution, saying he would hold a ballot in 2014.

He defended moves to muzzle the media and opposition parties in an interview with the ABC in August, saying he could not introduce reforms necessary for democracy if he was being destabilised.

"This is not an ordinary government, we're trying to bring about reforms and changes, and for that (it is) understood that at some stage we'll need to shut some people up," he said, adding important changes "will never happen if we open everything out to every Tom, Dick and Harry to have their say".

- AAP