- The Australian
- October 05, 2010
FORMER Fiji prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry will appear in court tomorrow for the second time in recent weeks.
He is accused of infringing the military government's public emergency regulations, which ban meetings without official permission.
Mr Chaudhry, the Labour Party leader whose elected governments were twice deposed by coups, (1987 and 2000), was released on bail yesterday after being held in cells for three days.
He and five other men were charged for meeting unlawfully at the home of one of the men at Rakiraki, on the central northern coast of Viti Levu.
"We'll be defending ourselves," Mr Chaudhry said. "We had no unlawful purpose in mind."
The public emergency regulations were introduced in April last year for 30 days but they have been repeatedly extended since.
Rakiraki spokesman for the National Farmers Union Sanjeev Maharaj was among those arrested.
Mr Chaudhry, who is general secretary of the union, was charged in July with money laundering and tax evasion, over events before the coup led by Commodore Frank Bainimarama in December 2006.
He has denied those charges, which are to be heard in court on October 15, and is seeking to have an overseas judge preside over the case.
The Labour Party was also accused last month of posting "mischievous press releases on its website calculated to undermine the government generally, or to bring disrepute to particular government officials".
The releases under question were critical of the management of the sugar industry.
ROWAN CALLICK (the australian)
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