FIGI: COMMUTATA IN ERGASTOLO PENA DI MORTE PER SPEIGHT

SIDNEY, 18 FEB - Il presidente delle Figi ha commutato oggi in ergastolo la pena di morte inflitta al

golpista George Speight per tradimento.

   Il leader nazionalista aveva deposto il primo capo di governo di etnia indiana e per 56 giorni aveva tenuto un gruppo di parlamentari in ostaggio. 

18-FEB-02 

Fiji Leader Commutes Death Sentence

By RAY LILLEY, 

SUVA, Fiji - Hours after he was sentenced to death for treason, Fijian coup leader George Speight was spared Monday when the president installed in the aftermath of the uprising commuted the sentence to life in prison.

 President Ratu Josefa Iloilo signed the commutation decree on the recommendation of both prosecution and defense lawyers because of Speight's surprise guilty plea, said Attorney General Qoriniasi Bale.

People sentenced to life in prison in Fiji usually serve about 10 years.

Speight led the armed overthrow of Fiji's first ethnic Indian-led government, seizing Parliament in May 2000 and taking the prime minister, most Cabinet ministers and other lawmakers hostage.

He said he led the coup to win back political power for his fellow indigenous Fijians, who make up 51 percent of the Pacific island nation's population of 820,000.

The hostages were released after a tense 56-day standoff during which Speight, his armed gang and the captives remained holed up in Parliament, surrounded by army troops.

The coup triggered riots, arson, looting and the ouster of Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, the first prime minister from Fiji's ethnic Indian community, which makes up about 44 percent of the population and wields considerable economic and political power. The coup also forced Iloilo's predecessor Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara from office.

Speight's guilty plea meant the jury never heard the case, and the judge formally entered a conviction against him.

Sitting in the dock wearing a traditional sulu skirt, Speight hung his shaved head and wept as Justice Michael Scott placed a black cloth over his judge's wig and read the sentence: death by hanging.

Speight's Australian attorney, Ron Cannon, said his client pleaded guilty in order to help close the country's ethnic wounds.

"This would then put the matter to rest and we hope will be accepted by the community as our contribution to the stability of the country and to reconciliation," Cannon said.

Chaudhry, who leads the Fiji Labor Party, said he was "relieved" the matter had ended and commended Speight for his guilty plea.

Elections last year installed a new government led by Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, an ethnic Fijian who supports parts of Speight's nationalist agenda and excluded Chaudhry's party from his Cabinet, a decision ruled unconstitutional by a court last week.

Also Monday, 10 of Speight's 12 accomplices had treason charges against them reduced to hostage-taking. They pleaded guilty and are expected to be given minor jail terms Tuesday.

Prosecutors said two other suspects still face treason charges, which carry the mandatory death penalty.

The indictment accused coup plotters of forming an illegal "Taukei (indigenous Fijian) Civilian Government" and unlawfully trying to overturn the country's constitution. The coup leaders also were accused of murdering a policeman before ending their armed rebellion in July 2000.

Speight never denied leading the uprising, but claimed he was granted immunity during the coup by the Great Council of Chiefs, the country's traditional rulers whose political role largely is symbolic but who command great respect and influence among ethnic Fijians.

Fiji is slowly shrugging off the crippling economic effects of the coup. Its crucial tourism industry is beginning to recover.

Fiji Rebel Speight Escapes Death Penalty

Feb 18

By James Regan

SUVA - Fiji coup leader George Speight escaped the death penalty Monday when the South Pacific island nation's president commuted a death sentence for treason to life imprisonment.

  Speight, who overthrew ethnically divided Fiji's first ethnic-Indian prime minister in 2000 in the name of indigenous rights, pleaded guilty to treason before the high court earlier in the day and burst into tears on hearing the death sentence.

But Fiji's Attorney General Qorinasi Bale told Reuters that President Ratu Josefa Iloilo, himself an indigenous Fijian, had signed a document later in the day commuting the sentence to life in prison.

"It means the death penalty imposed by the court is no longer in existence," Bale said. "George Speight now faces a sentence of life imprisonment."

Speight, dressed in a traditional sulu skirt and jacket, caused surprise by pleading guilty to the charge when the long-delayed hearing began Monday in the capital Suva, where rioters burned and looted shops and Indian homes during the coup.

"I am guilty your lordship," he told the judge.

Speight's lawyer immediately lodged a plea for clemency and read a statement from Speight urging his supporters to stay calm. "The judge's hands were tied and he had to pass the sentence that he did," Ron Cannon said, before the president's decision.

The city remained calm following the hearing.

Britain, which ruled Fiji at the time, brought ethnic Indians to the country in the late 1800s to cut sugar cane. Ethnic Indians now make up 44 percent of the 800,000 population.

THREE COUPS

Three coups, fueled by a fear among some indigenous Fijians that the economically powerful Indo-Fijians would gain the political upper hand, have rocked the island nation since 1987.

Speight and armed supporters stormed parliament on May 19, 2000, saying Indo-Fijians were undermining indigenous rights. His backers, who included some Fijian chiefs, said they wanted ethnic Indians stripped of political power.

During the coup, Speight held the then Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and most of his multi-racial government hostage at parliament for 56 days.

The armed forces, dominated by indigenous Fijians, stepped in and took over running the country but did not endorse the rebel bid for power.

The authorities arrested Speight after he freed his hostages and organized fresh elections in September 2001.

Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, an indigenous Fijian, chose an all-indigenous government after he won those elections.

Chaudhry, who was re-elected to parliament at the same time, won an appeal court ruling last week that his opposition party had a constitutional right to seats in government based on its showing in the September elections.

"I take no pleasure in the sentence, but the law must take its course," Chaudhry told Reuters before Speight's sentence was commuted.

Qarase's government said before the trial it planned to introduce legislation to make the penalty for treason life imprisonment rather than death.

Asked how he would vote on axing the death sentence for treason, Chaudhry said: "I have always felt that the right to life is the prerogative of the Lord Almighty."

Qarase has threatened to resign rather than allow Chaudhry's party into his government and is excepted to take fresh legal action following last week's appeal court ruling.

Speight's lawyer told Reuters his client had entered a plea of guilty knowing he faced the death sentence so that 10 co-accused rebels could face a lesser charge. "He is loyal to the members of his group," Cannon added.

Ten of Speight's co-accused pleaded guilty to kidnap charges late Monday after the more serious treason charge against them was dropped. Two others have asked that their treason charge also be reduced to a lesser charge.

The last execution in Fiji, where death sentences are usually commuted to jail terms, was in 1961 for a double murder.

Sitiveni Rabuka, who staged two military coups in 1987, was pardoned and later became prime minister.

The trial against Speight's co-accused continues on Tuesday.