29 Apr 2003

Fiji says it may recall envoys over coup suspicions

7:13 am on 29 April 2003

The Fiji government says it will recall two of its diplomats allegedly implicated in the coup if the police or the director of public prosecutions make a request.

The Daily Post quotes the minister of home affairs, Joketani Cokanasiga, as saying the high commissioner to Papua New Guinea, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola, and the ambassador to the United Nations, Colonel Isikia Savua, will not be given preferential treatment.

Mr Cokanasiga says they would be treated like anybody else implicated in the coup and the political crisis that followed.

He says the courts can rule that they are in the clear, otherwise they should be taken to task.

Col Savua and Ratu Inoke were implicated in the May 200o upheaval during evidence given in the treason trial of coup convicts, Josefa Nata and Timoci Silatolu.

The acting police commissioner, Moses Driver, is already studying the secret report by the former chief justice which cleared Col Savua and his file has been re-opened.