6 Mar 2007

Fiji Human Rights body denies reports of fourth death stemming from military

7:47 pm on 6 March 2007

Fiji's Human Rights Commission says it has no reports of another death stemming from the military's so-called clean up campaign.

A weblog which claims to have been monitoring human rights abuses following last year's coup has attributed four deaths to the military since the coup.

One of those deaths occurred at the wedding of Commodore Bainimarama's daughter and has no connection to questioning by the military or the police.

A murder charge has been laid and the matter is now before the courts.

The Human Rights Commission says investigations are continuing into the deaths of Nimilote Verebasaga and Sakiusa Rabaka.

But the Commission's Director, Dr Shaista Shameem, says there is no verification of the latest death or any connection with the military:

"We don't know if it's constructive information that has been put on the website or whether or not it is really true as we have no name as I understand, so we have no idea exactly where it is coming from but certainly we will send out, we have already sent out and inquiry note with the police and we will see what comes out of that."

Dr Shameem says it is hoping for responses from the military soon over inquiries into 20 complaints of human rights abuses.

She says they are also pursuing a number of investigations into alleged human rights abuses that haven't resulted in a formal complaint