‘Smacks of sexism’ “And Dr Padma Lal, along with her husband, was also banned from Fiji. This smacks of sexism and once again disregards Dr Lal’s illustrious career as an ecological economist and her work on the sugar industry and environment. I urge the Fiji Human Rights and Anti Discrimination Commission to step up and challenge this draconian decision of arbitrarily banning citizens and taking away their birthright.”

"Lal’s “writings and utterances irked the government” so they banned him from Fiji." Shamima Ali

The Australian High Commissioner to Fiji John Feakes expressed his appreciation to the Commissioner of Police for keeping Australian tourists safe as well as the many citizens that are either here for work or have come to call Fiji home. He paid a courtesy call to the Commissioner of Police Brigadier-General Sitiveni Qiliho last week.
The Fiji Sun, 4 February 2018

Fijileaks: We wonder when will SITIVENI RABUKA reveal his own role in the collapse of the National Bank of Fiji. He must NEVER be allowed back at the helm of power and government in Fiji. It is time the likes of Unity Fiji leader Savenaca Narube takes him head on, for those Fiji Sun opinion polls are a red-herring. He is a smooth talking political CONMAN, hiding behind IMMUNITY since 1988. Fiji can do better without Rabuka

“I would like to highlight the collapse of the National Bank of Fiji (‘NBF’) in 1995 which our country is still reeling from. We are still paying for the largest financial scandal in Fiji’s history. The then Government issued $209 million in bonds to bail out the NBF.  The funds borrowed were used to pay NBF depositors. The overall cost including the interest payment has exceeded half a billion dollars.  Yes, exceeded half a billion dollars. Madam Speaker, the initial bonds have matured but both the SDL Government and later on the FijiFirst Government has had to rollover this debt. This means that we are still paying for this debt and it is likely that future generations will continue to pay for it.  This in fact has created intergenerational inequity. The current and future generation has to bear the cost burden of the mismanagement of a State Owned Bank under the SVT Government. The Prime Minster then is of course the current leader of SODELPA. The situation was, of course, exacerbated by the then Senior Government Ministers who encouraged bad governance, nepotism and interference in the affairs of NBF. People were actually given hand written notes to the
Bank Manager to give loans. Everybody knows about this!”
Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum, in Parliament, 13 March 2018

BDO REPORT IS NOW HISTORY: USP's then Pro-Chancellor Thompson

Fijileaks: GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN: "We have come to bury Ceasar, not to praise him" Sadly, BIMAN PRASAD has hijacked the late Brij Lal's death and has turned it into a "Naatak". He is setting the stage for Sitiveni Rabuka to announce a coalition between PAP and NFP in 2022. Yes, lets celebrate Brij Lal's life and writings on the girmitiyas but to exaggerate his political activism against the FFP is a shame and gross insult to his memory and legacy (1952-2021). RIP.

From 2009 to 2015, while pursuing his academic interests, he kept a very low profile politically, hoping that through quite diplomacy the ban on him and his wife will be lifted by this callous regime. I kept reminding him that the present lot learnt their art of persecution, deportation, and exiling, from his misguided HERO Sitiveni Rabuka and the 1987 coups. Every decree is basically a photocopy of decrees that was promulgated by Rabuka. In 2015 he found out that his ban was permanent. Finally, in May 2019, Biman Prasad and Aiyaz Khaiyum exchanged bitter words in Parliament over the ban on Brij Lal. It was during the debate to commemorate the 140th anniversary of the arrival of indentured labourers. A year later, in 2020, after  persuasion and prodding from us, the late Brij Lal revealed the identity of the "Colonel" in his "Torture Affidavit" against Sitiveni Qiliho.

He was no longer lecturing us to let go "Rabuka's rape, political disenfranchisement, robbery, beatings and exiling" of the descendants of the Girmitiyas. We had told him you can't churn out millions of words on the "Violence of Indenture" and that painful study, 'Kunti's Cry: Indentured Women on Fiji's Plantations", and let us FORGET the rapes and beatings of our Indo-Fijian mothers, wives, daughters, cousins and sisters at the hands of Sitiveni Rabuka and his racist thugs. If you want us to wipe Rabuka's crimes from Fijian history, then, surely, you should wipe out all your historical writings on the violence and brutality of the indenture system. In February 2019, Brij Lal seemed to have given up the fight: "Dear Victor. Just to say hello and to wish you well. What are you up to these days? Fiji is now waning from my horizon. What do you do when people you want to help keep inflicting wounds on themselves? I am re-doubling my efforts into writing, preserving the fragments in early dotage. (the period of life in which a person is old and weak)." Best, Brij.
His health was beginning to deteriorate and his e-mails were full of typo errors; he put it down to failing eyesight. We informed him that Qilio was travelling up to London for  studies, and that we were planning to get him (Qiliho) arrested and charged with crimes of torture in Fiji following the 2006 Bainimmarama Coup.

In 2020 Brij Lal agreed to fight on, for all he now wanted was JUSTICE for what Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho had subjected him to in 2009, in that confined military cell. He began repeating with us what the late Martin Luther King, Jr., reminded us that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  We feel privileged to have played our part in that journey. Of course, in the process, making more enemies in Fiji, especially in the FijiFirst Party government. But, then, we have been fighting for justice, human rights, and democracy since 1987, and have refused to embrace coupists - from Sitiveni Rabuka to Frank Bainimarama. Let Prasad continue his "naatak" with RABUKA. He (Biman Prasad) has shamelessly hijacked Brij Lal's death. Condolence service in Fiji  should have been a multi-party affair (even inviting FFP) but NO, he made sure it was Prasad-Rabuka "Naatak".

Where is that other "nachaniya" ASHWIN RAJ, so-called human rights activist and former student of the late Brij Lal? Coming soon: Why Professor Lal kicked him out of the ANU?

CENSORED: The Fiji Times, while running a series of articles on the late Brij Lal could not summon courage and reveal what his "Torture Affidavit" revealed, including the identity of the Colonel who cowardly thumped him in a confined military cell in 2009. Instead, we read this censored version in the Fiji Times, 28 December 2021, accompanied by a photograph of gleaming BIMAN PRASAD, the NFP leader and Sitiveni Rabuka's political chambermaid, with Brij and Padma Lal. The NFP has shamelessly and politically hijacked his death.
According to IVA TORA, a Melbourne based writer and communications specialist:
"In all my discussions with him, Brij Lal was not one to indulge in any kind of self-pity or to talk in any great detail about his treatment — or mistreatment — at the hands of the military of which he was a vocal critic. This was a dark period of his life which I appreciated had taken an enormous psychological, mental and physical toll on his life. The little material I have of the abuse he suffered comes from snippets, personal accounts and anecdotes from friends and colleagues. In one such account, we are told that “a senior military officer in the Republic of Fiji Military Forces [ RFMF ] had detained Lal in 2009, slapped him and spat on him. A soldier also smashed his spectacles without which he could barely see. Lal was told to catch the next flight out of Fiji or his family would have to retrieve his dead body from the mortuary”. Oi Lei, it looks like Prasad didn't bring to her attention our revelations in the  Fijileaks. We are sure the Girmitiyas will be turning in their graveyards when they hear SITIVENI RABUKA speaking alongside Prasad at the condolence service. But, then, this slippery political snake charmer is forming a coalition with Rabuka's Peoples Alliance Party in 2022, hoping to complete the JOURNEY that Rabuka-Reddy embarked on in 1999.
Like many others, for years Prasad had remained silent on Lal's treatment and exile. He is also silent on Brij Lal's claim to us about Rabuka and that 'Petition to Parliament'.
We looked up an old coolie word - DOGLA - that was widely used by the indentured labourers against the sirdars. The word, according to Brij Lal in his writings on the Girmitiyas and the Indian indentured system, was used against the Indian sirdars (physical abusers of the coolies) who collaborated with the plantation owners from 1879-1920. In the last months Brij Lal finally accepted that Sitiveni Rabuka had liu muried him in concert with
Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, prompting us to respond,"Bhai, Liu Muri is in Rabuka's DNA'. Many who despise the Bainimarama-Khaiyum FFP government but who are charmed by Rabuka's
re-incarnation keep pleading with us to forget his violent criminal past, for they need him to disloge FFP at the next election. Just imagine if we had the same twisted mentality and logic, and had told Brij Lal: 'Bro, just forget about Qiliho, for he tortured you over 11 years ago, in 2009'.  But, NO, Brij Lal wanted justice, to hold Qiliho to account for his crimes.
Because of Covid restrictions in the UK and in Fiji, some of his victims were not able to obtain their medical records etc.. Some caught fright and disappeared from us altogether. The delays saw Qiliho escape to Fiji. However, the late Brij Lal's dogged insistence that we pursue Qiliho to the very end, has enabled us to expose SITIVENI QILIHO as the "Colonel" who tortured Brij Lal in that military cell in 2009. We thank over 1,500 Fijians of all races, inside and outside the country, who signed that initial petition to "Keep Torturer out of the UK". Sadly, those in the NFP organizing his condolence service, and those who will be singing his praise at the service, chose NOT to sign that "Torture Petition" - petition that was sent to the Royal Defence Academy in London, and a copy to the British High Commission in Suva who colluded in secreting Qiliho to London

BEAM HIS FACE ON NFP SCREEN AT THE CONDOLENCE GATHERING

Mr. Tulsi's Store is Brij Lal's personal account of his voyage from childhood in a remote and poor cane-growing region of Fiji to a distinguished international career as a historian, and as an actor in the political developments of modern Fiji.

IN pursuit of the Master Torturer Sitiveni Qiliho: Our Journey with Brij Lal

Fijileaks to MELANIE HOPKINS, then recently departed British High Commissioner to Fiji, who we strongly suspected assisted Sitiveni Qiliho in securing the study scholarship to the Royal College of Defence Studies in London: 7 August 2020 Dear Melaine Greetings. "I hope you received my previous e-mail. As we pointed out on our news site, this Qiliho is a violent thug who beat his way to power, and every institution turned him down because of his violent past...Our primary concern is his history of violence against those who opposed the coup. And six of his victims, who never made their accounts public, have come forward with affidavits, to assist Amnesty and anti-torture Redress in London to get him arrested under United Kingdom's Torture universal jurisdiction act."

24 June 2020: The outgoing British High Commissioner Melanie Hopkins (left photo) was accorded a quarter guard ceremony as she paid her last courtesy visit to the Commissioner of Police Sitiveni Qiliho at the Fiji Police Headquarters in Nasinu.

We also wrote to Paul Welsh, the Deputy High Commissioner to Fiji 7 August 2020 Dear Paul We are still waiting for answers: Who selected him? Who is paying for his trip, fees, accommodation? Was his violent past brought to the notice of the British Government and the Royal College of Defence Studies? Most of his victims are academics, lawyers, etc, including the prominent Suva lawyer __________ Most Fijians are horrified of his selection but also c as blessing in disguise, as we mount attempts to get this thug arrested in London, and subject him to accountability Why is a POLICE Commissioner doing at a military academy - militarization of the Fiji Police Force?

After a series of further e-mails, he sent to us his "Torture Affidavit".
"Here it is. It will be great if Qiliho is prevented from returning to Fiji
and becoming commander RFMF."
Dear Victor
"By separate email from my computer, I will send you something I have cobbled together.  I am not used to this sort of writing so please make any changes to it you see fit. There may be some extraneous matter in it that may have to go. I am very grateful to you for your interest in this case and for bringing this fellow's
vile and vicious behaviour into the public domain. But I also have a deep sense of foreboding that other concerns might drown out our call for justice. I have had a few enquiries from friends from Fiji, but a feeling of fatigue is palpable there,
the spirit to fight injustice quashed...Thanks. I had not seen this news item [Qiliho going up to the Royal Defence Academy in London]. It is shocking. When he was slated to come to Australia, I wrote to Julie Bishop and he was refuseed a visa to study here. Qiliho was a Bainimarama protege who was groomed to succeed him. He was his chief enforcer, assisted by Ben Naliva and Asaeri [Aseri] Rokoura, both viciious thugs.Qiliho interrogated me at QEB. He covered my face with his spitting and slapped me around to the point of breaking my gkasses, He told me that if I did not leave by the first flight the next day, my family would have to fetch my body from the morgue. 
He led a group of arsonists to burn down Justice Gordon Ward's Deuba villa. There are stories around of him stomping on the bodies of women taken to the camp for their various protests. It is deeply saddening to see him being welcomed in London. After the Canberra hiccup, he will now realize his ambition. Such are the ways of the world. Keep safe in these strange times, my friend."

May 19, 2000. Fiji's democratically elected multiracial government is hijacked by a group of armed gunmen led by George Speight, and held hostage for fifty days. Suva, the capital, is torched and looted as Speight's supporters gather on the lawns of the parliamentary complex, dancing, cooking food, celebrating the purported abrogation of the constitution that brought the Peoples' Coalition government to power. The country is plunged into darkness yet again, enduring the pain of three coups in a period of just thirteen years.

Editors: Brij V Lal and Michael Pretes

DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY? We spent weeks with our London human rights lawyers and concluded that even if Qiliho had travelled on a Diplomatic Passport (like the convicted murderer and Prison Commissioner Francis Kean did), under the "Pinochet Precedent" Qiliho had no protection in UK. To our good fortune, one of the leading lawyers specialising in torture cases on the team happened to have also looked into arresting Sitiveni Rabuka several years ago - another group seeking JUSTICE.
As for Qiliho, the late Brij Lal's affidavit is still valid for another day

"The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it." -
The Indo-Trinidanian novelist and Nobel laureate
V. S. Naipaul in A Bend In The River.

RESIGN: This smiling Torturer Qiliho must resign as Police Commissioner. The British High Commission in Suva must bow its
head in shame for facilitating his study trip to London. We challenge Fiji media to confront Qiliho regarding Professor Lal's torture affidavit and
to question Rabuka why he withheld the 'Petition to Parliament'.
"Bhai, I plan to move against him [Qiliho]. Looks like this [Military] Academy has turned a blind eye but the coward kept everything in utter secrecy. Russell Hunter has also come forward to provide a statement of his treatment at the hands of this THUG."

Fijileaks to late Professor Brij Lal (25 April 2021): 'Bhai, Liu Muri is in Rabuka's DNA'. We notice Rabuka will be one of the speakers at the condolence gathering organized by the NFP. Brij Lal's torturer Sitiveni Qiliho escaped only because of Covid restrictions, and some of his Fijian victims, in typically Fiji style, "liu muried" us at the final hurdle. One victim saying "God Loves Qiliho and his family"

The Petition Conspirators?

Ironically, the late Professor Brij Lal nearly became his own victim on Immunity that he had agreed to grant Rabuka in the 1997 Constitution. We had spent weeks with our London human rights lawyers to resolve the question of IMMUNITY that Qiliho might have claimed. After all, the IMMUNITY that Rabuka had granted himself after the 1987 coups was inserted into his 1990 and 1997 Constitutions, and carried forward into the 2013 Constitution, absolving military, police and other thugs who carried out brutalities during and after the coups in Fiji. Although Qiliho was protected in Fiji, he had no protection in the UK, based on the "Pinochet precedent". In Chilean dictator Pinochet's case, the House of Lords had ruled that Pincohet had no amnesty for his crimes in Chile. The late Professor Brij Lal's affidavit was strong enough to arrest Qiliho

The late Professor Brij Lal's PETITION which he claims Rabuka ditched after he (Rabuka) was persuaded by the Speaker Nailatikau to ignore it

Fijileaks: We are also deeply alarmed at the way Professor Brij Lal's death has been politically hijacked by the National Federation Party. With great respect to our departed fellow traveller for justice, democracy, and human rights, who finally turned to us to get Qiliho arrested in London, what needs to be exposed is Professor Lal's affidavit where he IDENTIFIES his principal torturer Sitiveni Qiliho. It is Qiliho's FACE that should be beamed on the wide screen during the condolence service, now that the service will be held on Thursday.
As we privately pointed out to NFP leader Biman Prasad, some of us have been in EXILE longer than the late Professor Lal.  But Exile is Exile. Our TORTURER: None other than Sitiveni Rabuka, who is hiding behind IMMUNITY.
As a fellow academic who contributed chapters to some of Professor Lal's edited books, and also publicly and in print disagreed with many of his interpretations on Fijian politics, we believe Professor Brij Lal would be the first one to raise alarm regarding the hijacking of his exile and death.
As a fellow descendant of a girmitiya, most of his writings and publications on indenture were of extreme value but confined to specific researchers and historians. But it was his role in the drafting of 1997 Constitution that we must remember him. Let us remind NFP leader BIMAN PRASAD:
When Rabuka speaks at the condolence gathering, remind him that it was he (Rabuka) who had deliberately chosen 14 May 1987 (the day and month the first batch of Indian coolies were introduced into Fiji on 14 May 1879), to end their journey from Plantation to Parliament. Some were from Professor Lal's Labasa. Professor Lal had spent a lifetime recording the history of the girmitiyas.
The 1987 coups were the beginning of "EXILE" for thousands upon thousands of Indo-Fijians, and hundreds are buried in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, America, UK - and not in their BELOVED FIJI. Professor Lal will be one of them.
Moreover, many paying their tributes never spoke out for the late Professor
Brij Lal, as Professor Wadan Narsey pointed out this week

* What had happened at the Army headquarters that the fire had not been spotted on time for it to be contained? *Where guards on duty in the early hours of the morning? * And what about the RFMF’s own fire fighting equipment? *I do not believe that the army is so ill-equipped it does not have its own fire fighting gadgets." Mahendra Chaudhry, FLP leader

2000 Mutiny: Fire, Fire, Fire. My Pants is on Fire. Run, Run, Run, Frank

Fijileaks: How come NO SOLDIER was on guard duty at the time of the FIRE when ordinary and deeply religious Christian i-Taukei Fijians
were ordered to turn up for work on the Holy Christmas Day?

The Alleged Shadowy Role of Indo-Fijian Muslims through Aiyaz Khaiyum. "Bula bhai, Who banned you and why?" (9 October 2016)
On 10 October 2016, the late Professor Brij Lal confided to us:

"Quite bizzarely, I was told by the QEB barracks that some of ASK's close Muslim supporters leaned on him not to allow me back into the country because, they said, I was the one on the Reeves Commission who had objected to the Indo-Fijian Muslim demand for separate seats in the 1997 Constitution. That is completely untrue. The issue was never raised in our deliberations simply because no one wanted more division in an already divided society. I believe now that it is Khaiyum who is the one who is blocking us from returning to Fiji, with the support of his Muslim cohorts. I never imagined this sort of zealous bigotry possible in a place like Fiji. So sad, so short-sighted but we will never bow before the bandits...I admire your courage and resilience. Their victory is phyrric.'

Professor Brij Lal 21 August 1952 – 25 December 2021

"You may keep us out of Fiji but you will never be able to keep Fiji out of our hearts."  Professor Brij Lal to Fiji Immigration Department, 2015

Paul Tabori, The Anatomy of Exile: A Semantic and Historical Study, 1972

There is No Easy Walk To Freedom

 CRY, the Beloved Country: So many of our PATRIOTS die in Exile because of the COUP virus that was started by Sitiveni Rabuka in 1987. The late Professor Brij Lal, one of the architects of the 1997 Constitution of Fiji, never again saw his beloved COUNTRY after he was arrested, assaulted, and spat at by Sitiveni Qiliho, now the Police Commissioner, and DEPORTED and BANNED from Fiji in 2009. The late Professor Brij Lal's only "crime" (according to the coupists) was to speak out against the 2006 treasonous COUP in Fiji, as he explained in his affidavit against Sitiveni Qiliho. We repeat again: both, Sitiveni Rabuka and Frank Bainimarama must NEVER be allowed to return to power in Fiji. There is no such person as a Bad COUPIST or a Good COUPIST. 
Every passing DEATH reminds our families and friends of the pain, suffering, tears, and horrors of the racist and bogus nationalist Sitiveni Rabuka's COUPS, George Speight's failed but violent 2000 Coup, and Frank Bainimarama's
bogus 'Clean Up Campaign' Coup of 2006
RIP, PROFESSOR BRIJ LAL
"When you go home, tell them of us and say: For your tomorrow, we gave our today."

"This is to certify that I, Brij Vilash Lal, a Fiji-born Australian citizen, was taken in by the Fiji Military to the Queen Elizabeth Barracks in Nabua, Fiji, on 4 November 2009. At the barracks, I was placed in a cell and interrogated by the then Lt. Col. Sitiveni Qiliho. He covered my face with his spit and slapped me continuously to the point of breaking my glasses. This ordeal has remained with me all these years, impossible to forget. At the end of the interrogation, he told me that unless I left the country by the first available flight (to Australia), my family would have to fetch my body from the morgue." Professor Brij Lal's affidavit for The Metropolitan Police, London

To Whom It May Concern, Re- Arrest of Qiliho in London

"This is to certify that I, Brij Vilash Lal, a Fiji-born Australian citizen, was taken in by the Fiji Military to the Queen Elizabeth Barracks in Nabua, Fiji, on 4 November 2009.
At the barracks, I was placed in a cell and interrogated by the then Lt. Col. Sitiveni Qiliho. He covered my face with his spit and slapped me
continuously to the point of breaking my glasses. This ordeal has remained with me all these years, impossible to forget.
I was subjected to this interrogation for my principled and peaceful protest against the excesses of the Fijian military after the 2006 coup and for standing up for the vales of democracy, the rule of law and freedom of speech. During the entire interrogation, Qiliho kept reiterating the noble role of the military in the governance of Fiji.
At the end of the interrogation, he told me that unless I left the country by the first available flight (to Australia), my family would have to fetch my body from the morgue. I left for Australia the following morning. I did not know at the time that I would be banned for life from returning to Fiji.
Several years later in 2015, the then Immigration Minister Lesi Natuva told parliament that I was a threat to Fiji’s peace, security and order.
I have since written to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in
Geneva (to Ambassadors Susan Mansfield of Australia and Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji) about the breach of my human rights but to no avail. Fijian Opposition Leader Sitiveni Rabuka agreed to present a petition on our behalf to the Fijian Parliament but was dissuaded from doing so by the Speaker of the House Ratu Epeli Nailatikau.
My numerous enquiries to the Fijian Immigration Department have never been acknowledged. And so, we remain in exile.
Regrettably, I am not the only person to have been at the receiving end of Col Qiliho’s vile and vicious behaviour. He has been an integral part of Fiji military’s repressive apparatus, a fact that is widely known throughout Fiji.
He is now a Brigadier General in the Fijian military and is the country’s Commissioner of Police. It is distressing to see that one of those well known for wanton breaching of the human rights of ordinary law abiding citizens gets rewarded with admission to one of United Kingdom’s elite Defence Colleges, when a similar admission was refused by Australia."

Brij Vilash LAL, AM, OF
Member of the Order of Australia
Officer of the Order of Fiji
Brisbane, Australia

BELOW: Listen to the late Professor Brij Lal's interview on arrival on Australian soil. In this interview, he didn't disclose the whole truth, and understandably, for his wife and family were still stranded in Fiji. Nor did he disclose the identity of the "Colonel" - that torturer Sitiveni Qiliho

"Nothing lasts forever except words. I will re-double my efforts to bear witness to our time and place so that future generations will know what we and our country have gone through, to understand the motivation and the modus operandi of a couple of people at the helm of Fiji’s political leadership in the early years of the 21st century. The government’s victory is a pyrrhic one, hollow, morally compromised. You may keep us out of Fiji but you will never be able to keep Fiji out of our hearts. Someday, you folks will realize the fundamental unjustness of a decision in which you have acquiesced."

BOTH, Professor Brij Lal and Russell Hunter died in Brisbane

The late Professor Brij Lal was particularly critical of Bainimarama-Khaiyum's decision to expel New Zealand and Australian diplomats

 The offices of DPP, Solicitor-General, Attorney-General, Auditor-General and Police Commissioner acknowledge receiving complaint letter from FLP, Freedom Alliance and Unity Fiji

Fijileaks to NFP's BIMAN PRASAD: You can run but you can't HIDE under Coupist Sitiveni Rabuka's sulu. Voters will remember your refusal to
sign the letter against Saneem and Suresh Chandra

OSTRICH: Keeping his head down while secretly negotiating Coalition

The Saneem-Chandra Allegations are NO LAUGHING MATTER. Here is a man who is he claiming that if he forms next government, he will find out all the CORRUPTION that has been taking place under FFP Government . We understand Rabuka's stance, for HE has a history of Liu Muri in Fiji

GONE? The Auditor-General's position advertised. Has he been Sacked?

VACANCY: Auditor-General Closing: ​31 December 2021

Fijileaks: It is clear that Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum and his staff in the Attorney-General's Office were aware of Chandra's failure to comply with the Trust Accounts Act, for they approved four consecutive extension letters to the Chief Registrar

* SURESH CHANDRA was elected Chairperson by former President
Jioji Konrote on 3 February 2017.
* Was a background check performed on him by the Elections Minister Aiyaz Khaiyum and Supervisor of Elections Mohammed Saneem?
* Now, Justice Daniel Goundar says that Chandra did NOT submit his audit reports for three financial periods from 2016 to 2018.
* And, Chandra provided the Chief Registrar with four extensions from the Office of the Attorney General to submit his pending audit reports. *The extension was given pursuant to section 12(2) of the
Trust Accounts Act.
* Justice Goundar adds the last extension was granted until 31 July last year for Chandra to submit his three pending audit reports.
*Section 12 of the Trust Accounts Act requires a trustee to submit audit reports for each financial period.
Fijileaks: It is clear that Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum and his staff in the Attorney-General's Office were aware of Chandra's failure to comply with the Trust Accounts Act, for they approved four consecutive extention letters to the Chief Registrar.
So, why did Aiyaz Khaiyum approve Chandra as Electoral Commission Chairperson on 17 February 2017?
We may recall that NFP was suspended (and later the suspension was lifted) for 30 days after Saneem argued that the party's accounts were NOT audited by a certified Accountant.
And, here we have a prominent lawyer Chandra, who was allowed to oversee the 2018 general election, when his past record was not questioned but hidden from the voters and the political parties. There is something really ROTTEN in the House of Khaiyum.

LETS HOPE CHANDRA WILL GET OUT OF AUSTRALIA in February for his hearing, for many before him who went never came back to Fiji