Former Fiji PM Rabuka appears in court to face mutiny charges

Former Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has appeared before a Suva magistrate to face mutiny charges for his part in the 2000 coup there.

Rabuka entered no plea and was released on bail of $F1000 ($NZ940). As part of his bail conditions he was warned not to interfere with potential witnesses.

"I am not guilty," Rabuka told journalists outside the court.

Asked if he was surprised to be arrested, Rabuka said: "No".

Rabuka was arrested at his home in the capital Suva late on Thursday after a long investigation by police and the military.

Rabuka, who led two coups in 1987, looked relaxed when he appeared in the Suva Magistrates Court and was remanded on bail to appear again in Fiji's High Court on June 30. He was also ordered to report to police twice a week.

His surprise court appearance came the day before polls were due to close in Fiji's racially charged, week-long election which pits indigenous Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase against ethnic Indian challenger Mahendra Chaudhry.

"Are you here to cover the elections?" Rabuka joked with local and foreign media crowded outside the courthouse in the capital's run-down, colonial style former parliament building where he staged his coups.

With greying hair and a long moustache, the man whose face was once the most recognisable in the South Pacific sat quietly in the courtroom dressed in a grey traditional sulu, or skirt, monogrammed striped blue short and red tie.

In a statement read to the court, prosecutors alleged that in July 2000 Rabuka had incited Fiji army Lieutenant-Colonel Viliame Seruvakula "to execute the removal of the commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces, Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama".

Bainimarama declared martial law in a bid to end a May 2000 coup by armed nationalists under failed businessman George Speight which toppled Chaudhry's elected multi-racial government.

Chaudhry, Fiji's first ethnic Indian prime minister, was held hostage along with most of his cabinet for 56 days.

Bainimarama barely escaped with his life during the bloody mutiny, scrambling down a wooded hillside behind Suva's Queen Elizabeth Barracks with the help of loyal officers to get away.

The mutiny, led by members of Fiji's elite Counter Revolutionary Warfare unit, was crushed after a gun battle in which eight soldiers were killed.

Army Captain Shane Nailatikau Stevens was sentenced to death for leading the mutiny but his sentence was commuted to life in prison. Fourteeen soldiers received lesser sentences.

Rabuka ousted the multi-racial government of Timoci Bavadra in the first of two coups in 1987 and was prime minister until 1999, when Chaudhry won power in a landslide.

Racial tensions are never far from the surface in Fiji, where indigenous Fijians who make up 51 per cent of the 906,000 population, fear the growing political power of Indians who dominate the sugar- and tourism-based economy.

- REUTERS