Speight merely frontman for Fiji coup, paper says

Fiji coup leader George Speight was only the "frontman" for the 2000 coup, a local newspaper has reported.

The Fiji Sun said Maciu Navakasuasua, a former goldminer involved in the planning of the coup, had confirmed the role Speight played.

Former prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry was taken hostage at gunpoint and his government overthrown in the May 2000 coup.

Mr Navakasuasua, now an Australian resident, alleged the overthrow was planned by the nationalist Vanua Tako Lavo Party and Speight was only brought in a day earlier to be its spokesman.

He said Speight accepted the offer because he already had grudges against the government, and then staged a coup within a coup and grabbed the leadership role.

Radio New Zealand International today reported that Vanua Tako Lavo Party president Viliame Savu, who has served his sentence for coup crimes, had confirmed that Speight was only brought in the day before the coup.

Mr Navakasuasua called on Vilimoni Tikotani, a former counter-revolutionary warfare unit soldier, to reveal the truth about who used him and his unit. But The Sun reported that Tikotani, who is currently serving a jail term near Suva, did not wish to comment.

Separately, the Fiji Times reported a plot to assassinate former prime minister Mr Chaudhry.

Its report was based on a statement to police by Mr Navakasuasua, who said he was approached to blow up Nadi International Airport when Mr Chaudhry and his entourage passed through.

Mr Navakasuasua says the plot was discussed with some of the men who had since been charged and convicted of other coup-related offences.

The Fiji Times reported that police commissioner Andrew Hughes said the allegations were being investigated, but he could not divulge what witnesses were saying before they appeared in court.

Mr Navakasuasua also revealed that Jack's Handicraft Centre in Suva, the Blueline Bus Company depot and the Kasabia Hardware shop were all targets.

An explosion at Kasabia Hardware damaged a wall, and two buses and an electricity sub-station near Lami were damaged in explosions.

Mr Navakasuasua has implicated a parliamentarian, a businessman, two nationalist leaders and two military officers as being members of the group that planned the bombings.

Their aim was to create instability in Fiji in the months after Mr Chaudhry had become prime minister and force the military to move in, he said.

- NZPA