9 Mar 2013

Bainimarama supports security personnel in Fiji despite brutality video

7:29 am on 9 March 2013

Fiji's Prime Minister says he will stick by the security personnel of Fiji as they worked tirelessly last year to ensure that prison escapees are recaptured.

Commodore Frank Bainimarama told Fiji Village online people are speculating on who was involved in the recent video of two people being brutally beaten up by a group of men and are saying excessive force has been used.

In the government's first comment since the video's release on Tuesday, he said people should know the security personnel work hard to protect the citizens of Fiji from hardened criminals.

He says no one has been has been identified but people keep referring to it as prisoners who escaped from Naboro last year.

Police have said the two are not the Naboro escapees.

The prime minister says people should not forget what the Naboro escapees did when they broke out of prison in those two weeks.

Commodore Bainimarama says investigations will be held but as the head of the government and the person responsible for the security of the nation, he stands by the security personnel.

Commodore Bainimarama also says he is not worried about what all the NGOs are saying.

He says NGOs are paid by the international community to jump up and down every time we do something.

The father of one of the men brutally beaten in the video, who is a retired military officer, has begged the prime minister and the president to ensure the men responsible are taken to justice.

The police have confirmed the people seen beating and sexually abusing the two tied-up prison escapees in a nine-minute long video released on Tuesday are Fijian security personnel.