Fiji’s former Prime Minister, Frank Bainimarama, was granted an “absolute discharge” by the Magistrates Court, after receiving a guilty verdict from the country’s High Court for “perverting the course of justice.” The lenient decision is said to have been influenced by Bainimarama’s poor state of health and an underlying heart condition, according to reports.
Bainimarama, who was the country’s longest-serving prime minister from 2007-2022, was found guilty earlier this month by the High Court, for meddling in an ongoing investigation into the University of the South Pacific in 2020. This meddling, which involved instructing police officials—including the then-police commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho, a co-defendant in this case—to “stay away” from the investigation, was deemed as an attempt to “pervert the course of justice”.
The guilty verdict handed down by the High Court countermanded a previous not guilty decision from 2023 delivered by the Magistrates Court. In his judgement, Justice Salesi Temo argued, the Magistrate had “erred in fact and in law when she found both the respondents not guilty”, subsequently overturning the decision. Nonetheless, sentencing was relegated to the lower court.
Following the discharge of Bainimarama, Acting Director of Public Prosecutions, John Rabuku, immediately filed an appeal against the leniency of the sentence faced by Bainimarama and Qiliho. The Magistrates Court also issued Qiliho with a conditional discharge alongside a fine of $1500.
Expressing his dissatisfaction with the decision, Rabuku commented that the sentence from Magistrate Puamau was “wrong both in fact and in law” and did not echo the considerations of cases of similar nature. A statement by Rabuku’s office indicated that the state submitted four grounds of appeal with the High Court against the former prime minister and Qiliho.