Former Fiji PM, police chief get jail time

Fiji's former Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has been sentenced to one year in prison for perverting the course of justice, a high court judge has ruled.

The suspended police commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho will serve two years for abuse of office.

Local media reported on Thursday that acting Chief Justice Salesi Temo also quashed the sentencing earlier handed down by Magistrate Seini Puamau in April.

Watch Jope Tarai's interview on the case below.

Police were put on high alert at the high court in Suva and surrounding streets.

Bainimarama was found guilty of one count of attempt to pervert the course of justice in the University of the South Pacific case while Qiliho was found guilty of one count of abuse of office.

Both men appeared before Puamau in March and she granted the former Fijian leader and top cop non-custodial sentences including no registration of their convictions. The prosecution appealed.

On 12 October, Puamau found Bainimarama and Qiliho not guilty of corruption related to an investigation at the University of the South

But in an appeal by the state, Temo overturned the verdicts and found Bainimarama guilty of perverting the course of justice and Qiliho of abuse of office.

Temo then ordered the matter be brought before Magistrate Puamau on 18 March for her to abide by the high court decision and pronounce both men guilty as charged, and to convict them accordingly.

Qiliho was handed a FJ$1500 (NZ$1113) fine by Puamau last week and ordered to pay it within 30 days or face 30 days in prison.

Temo said that in the 15 years that he had served in the lower court, no magistrate "pronounced publicly or in their judgement when ordered by the High Court to reverse their decisions".

He said magistrates would follow a judge's decision "whether they like it or not".

In his submission to the high court, the acting director of public prosecutions John Rabuku said Puamau’s decision was "unsatisfactory and wrong both in fact and in law and does not reflect the considerations and tariff of cases or matters of similar nature".

Under Section 202 of Fiji's Crime Act, Justice Temo could activate the High Court contempt proceedings and refer the matter to the police.

Bainimarama's lawyers have been contacted for comment.