SUVA, Fiji (AP) — Two members of a gang that launched a May 2000 nationalist coup in Fiji pleaded innocent to treason charges in a High Court pre-trial hearing Tuesday, insisting they had been granted immunity from prosecution.
But their defense appears unlikely to succeed. High Court Judge Andrew Wilson told the two men last week that an army decree providing an immunity guarantee—a deal struck before the gang released government leaders it was holding hostage—was not valid.
Josefa Nata and traditional Fijian chief Ratu Timoci Silatolu were part of a gang of armed indigenous Fijians led by failed businessman George Speight which stormed Fiji’s Parliament on May 19, 2000, taking hostage Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and most of his government.
Speight said he launched the coup to restore political power to indigenous Fijians. The government he overthrew was Fiji’s first to be led by a member of the country’s ethnic Indian minority.
Speight and his supporters held the hostages for 56 days, only releasing them after an army pledge that they would be given immunity from prosecution.
Speight pleaded guilty in February to treason and was sentenced to death. The sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment. Other members of Speight’s gang were given shorter sentences after pleading guilty.
Wilson said in a ruling last week that the armed forces commander, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, had no legal power to grant the coup plotters immunity.
No trial date was immediately set at the hearing, but the case is expected to start in July. Nata and Silatolu face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted.
