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A number of prominent participants in the 2000 Fijian coup d'état were tried, and some convicted, in 2004 and 2005. Many of those tried include Cabinet Minister, parliamentarians, and others who have links to the present government, which has come under criticism from some quarters for releasing on parole some of the persons convicted. Strained relationships among some of Fiji's senior judges have raised some concerns about the conduct of the trials. The (Fiji Sun ) claimed on 3 November 2005 that documents in their possession revealed that three Justices - Nazhat Shameem, Anthony Gates and John Byrne - had written to Chief Justice Daniel Fatiaki asking that Justice Michael Scott be excluded from any Supreme Court panel hearing appeals against any of their cases, saying that Scott had exercised "extreme hostility" toward them ever since the upheaval of 2000. They alleged that he had demanded an inquiry into their conduct and had threatened to sue them on his own retirement from the bench. Shameem unsuccessfully applied to have Scott excluded from the panel hearing the appeal of former Senator Ratu Rakuita Vakalalabure, who was convicted by Shameem of coup-related offences. Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes revealed on 4 January 2006 that 782 individuals had been charged and convicted for 28 types of offences in relation to the coup. ==Timoci Silatolu and Josefa Nata== Timoci Silatolu, sometimes known as Ratu Timoci Silatolu, and Josefa Nata, were convicted of treason on 21 March 2003. They were sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum term of 9 years for Silatolu and 7 years for Nata. Silatolu, a disgruntled back-bench MP in the Chaudhry government, had made a crucial telephone call on the day of the coup, alerting his to-conspirators that the time was right for it, and was subsequently appointed to George Speight's rebel cabinet, first as Prime Minister then as Deputy Prime Minister after Speight himself claimed the office. Justice Andrew Wilson found that Silatolu and Nata, a journalist, had told many lies in their defence. In June that year, the pair were sentenced to life imprisonment. They had earlier rejected plea bargaining, refusing an offer of a seven-year sentence if they pleaded guilty. On 15 July 2005, the Court of Appeal ordered the government to provide Silatolu and Nata with a lawyer for their pending appeal. At a court appearance on 15 September 2005, High Court Justice Gerard Winter refused an application from Silatolu's lawyer, Inoke Josefa, to require the Military to produce the results of an inquiry it had conducted into the 2000 crisis, accepting their objection that it could compromise national security. Silatolu made a second attempt to force the release of the inquiry on 21 October. Meanwhile, the trial has been adjourned until 16 November. He partially reversed this decision on 27 January 2006, however; he would order the documents to be released, he said - but only after studying them himself to ensure that they did not threaten national security. Fiji Village quoted Military lawyer Major Ana Rokomokoti on 7 February as saying that the Military would seek a stay order on Winter's decision that he should be allowed to view the documents, which the Military declared to be top secret. On the 8th, Winter gave the Military till the 14th to file affidavits, pending his ruling on the 23rd. On the 23rd, however, a stay order was placed, and it was announced that a decision would be made the following week as to whether the documents could be declassified and used as defence evidence by plaintiffs. Fiji Live reported on 4 March that earlier in the week, Winter had ruled against the Military's request. Winter will now view the documents privately, before deciding whether to make them available to defendants. The Fiji Times reported on 1 March that lawyer Abhay Singh had called for Silatolu and Nata to be given a retrial, accusing Justice Andrew Wilson of having been biased in his judgement. ''"Judge Andrew Wilson was imbalanced in his summing up of the case ... the learned judge made his directions to the assessors on behalf of the prosecution thus influencing the assessors' decisions in that my clients were guilty as charged,''" he alleged. Justice Gordon Ward in the Court of Appeal dismissed Silatolu and Nata's appeal. Lawyer Abhay Singh announced his intention to lodge a further appeal with the Supreme Court. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Trials since the 2000 Fijian coup d'état」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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