15 Mar 2008

Fiji lawyer receives threatening phone call

10:50 am on 15 March 2008

The lawyer for New Zealand businessman, Ballu Kahn, says he has received a threatening phone call from the Fiji military about a newspaper article he was writing.

Mr Khan is charged with conspiring to kill Fiji's interim prime minister and other leading politicians.

Lawyer Graham Leung says someone from the Army called him yesterday and said an article he was writing for the Fiji Times criticising the interim government had been intercepted.

Mr Leung says says the article was about the discrepancy between the regime's rhetoric and what is happening on the ground.

He says it is a demonstrable intrusion into the lives of citizens and demonstrates that freedom of speech and freedom of expression is being interfered with in Fiji.