Seruiratu is State Witness Against Qiliho
Leader of Opposition Inia Seruiratu has given a statement to Police in relation to suspended Police Commissioner, Brigadier-General Sitiveni Qiliho’s alleged abuse of office court case.
This was pointed out at the Suva Magistrate’s Court by defence lawyer Devanesh Sharma yesterday when Qiliho and former Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama appeared for their court case before Magistrate Seini Puamau. Mr Sharma raised this and explained that since Mr Seruiratu was the Leader of Opposition, who is also a State witness and Bainimarama is the party leader for FijiFirst, the two would need to discuss party matters.
He said there would be no discussion about the case which would raise any issues of interference. This was not objected to by the Acting Director of Public Prosecutions David Toganivalu. Bainimarama and Qiliho are each charged with one count of abuse of office.
Representations:
The prosecution was represented by Mr Toganivalu and DPP lawyer Jayneeta Prasad.
Bainimarama and Qiliho were represented by lawyers Devanesh Sharma and Gul Fatima.
The charges:
Bainimarama, sometime in the month of July, 2020, at Suva, being employed in the public service as the Prime Minister of Fiji, directed Commissioner of Police to stop investigations into the Police complaint involving CID/ HQ PEP 12/07/2019, in the abuse of the authority of his office, which was an arbitrary act prejudicial to the rights of the University of the South Pacific, which is the complainant in CID/HQ PEP 12/07/2019.
Qiliho on July 15, 2020, at Suva, being employed in the public service as the Commissioner of Police of Fiji, directed the director of criminal investigations department Serupepli Neiko and Inspector Reshmi Dass to stop investigations into the Police complaint involving CID/HQ PEP 12/07/2019, in the abuse of the authority of his office, which was an arbitrary act prejudicial to the rights of the USP, which is the complainant in CID/HQ PEP 12/07/2019.
Acting DPP Mr Toganivalu said additional disclosures were served to the defence counsels this week and it was complete from the prosecution’s end.
Mr Sharma told the court that there were no admissions made by the accused persons and since he was served with the additional disclosures on Wednesday, he would like to go through it over the weekend. He further added that if there were any preliminary issues, the defence would raise it by way of applications in court.
He said that there were 38 witnesses from the State in the case and out of it, eight to 10 were material witnesses for the trial. Magistrate Puamau asked the prosecution if they were going to rely on the record of interviews. Mr Toganivalu said possibly, however, the State was yet to hear from the defence lawyers whether they accepted the translations of the interview from iTaukei language to English. Mr Sharma said both accused persons were confident they did not give any such directions to anyone involved in this case.
He said Bainimarama and Qiliho did not give any such order to stop the investigations. The case has been fixed for trial from July 17 to July 28 while the matter will be called for a pre-trial conference on June 19.