"Commodore Bainimarama is spinning a tale of success in his "clean up" campaign. Many observers are skeptical. FICAC is a rogue organization without legal legitimacy. One FICAC court case has already been withdrawn, presumably to keep from having a near-term constitutional challenge." - The former US Ambassador Larry Dinger to Washington,
5 August 2007, Wikileaks cables
Fijileaks:
IT seems Aiyaz Khaiyum is re-defining what ownership means?
But if he's saying he only has 99 shares, this opens up all sorts of questions!
Shares:
How many are there? Who owns them? What % of them does he hold?
If Midlife Investments Limited is de-registered, how can Khaiyum still hold 99 shares?
How can MIL still own an asset?
Value Declaration:
So FICAC concludes that MIL owns the asset not Khaiyum?
If so, why did Khaiyum declare it as his asset?
Why did he not make this 'distinction' known in his Statutory Declaration?
If his share of the asset is $20,000, then he has overstated its value by $60,000
De-Registration:
If the company is de-registered, who does he still own shares in it in 2015?
Why is the file hidden in the ROC from the public?
If the asset is still alive and owned by MIL, then the file must be available for public scrutiny.
Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum is a compulsive liar
Fijileaks sources inside FICAC claim the statement below was drafted by Aiyaz Khaiyum and his legal cronies for George Langman to sign it:
Fijileaks to George Langman: Stop blaming Opposition from going to the media. You and Khaiyum held a press conference to reveal the so-called charges that were to be laid against the former deposed CJ Daniel Fatiaki; in 2009 VICTOR LAL wrote a two-part story based on documents provided to him from inside FICAC and A-G's Chambers on Khaiyum and Paul Madigan's (now a High Court Judge) roles in charging Fatiaki after the 2006 coup; the Fiji Sun has removed it from the paper's online website.
Reproduced from C4/5, 8 March 2010
Madigan's role in Fatiaki's removal
The Guilty Eight trial is not the first high-profile case Justice Paul Madigan has been involved in. As prosecutor and drafter of the FIRCA decrees, Madigan was instrumental in removing Chief Justice Daniel Fatiaki from his post. As High Court judge, he last week found Ratu Inoke Takaveikata and seven others guilty of conspiring to murder the military dictator Frank Bainimarama. Victor Lal wrote the following article for the Fiji Sun and it appeared on July 1, 2009.
How Fatiaki’s tax case arose 1/7/2009
In December 2007, a high-level meeting took place in the conference room of the Attorney-General’s chambers in Suvavou House between the interim Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, the Fiji Islands Revenue and Customs Authority’s then acting CEO, Jitoko Tikolevu, Paul Madigan and Elizabeth Yang, the two Hong Kong based Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) prosecutors and a top FIRCA tax investigator. At this meeting it was resolved to conduct an investigation into the suspended Chief Justice Daniel Fatiaki (pictured left) with a view to prosecuting him for tax avoidance, even though Justice Fatiaki had paid his taxes during the amnesty period.
On 10 December, the tax investigator who had presented FIRCA’s case to that above meeting in or about the afternoon of 7 December, wrote to Justice Fatiaki as follows: “This letter is to notify you that the Fiji Islands Revenue and Customs Authority is conducting an investigation into an allegation that you have breached the Income Tax Act by omitting income from your tax returns for the years ended 31 December 1998 to 2005.”
He also attached for Justice Fatiaki’s information a copy of the relevant parts of section 44 and section 96 of the Income Tax Act. The tax investigator, who is no longer employed with FIRCA, gave Justice Fatiaki the opportunity of participating in a formal interview to answer the above allegations against the suspended CJ.
“The interview will be conducted under criminal caution. At this interview you may choose to have your legal representative or another person present. The interview will be at a mutually convenient place and time. This may be during or outside working hours, at FIRCA premises or another place. If you wish to be interviewed could you please contact the undersigned by phone within 14 days to arrange this? As an alternative to an interview you may choose to make a written, signed statement concerning the allegation,” the investigating tax officer told Justice Fatiaki.
Now, the former tax investigator claims that the interim government used the tax system to get people for political reasons. He also claims that the information he gave to Mr Madigan and Ms Yang was under perceived threat, paving the way for action to remove Justice Fatiaki under the 1997 Constitution of Fiji.
Looking back at my notes, the former tax investigator had written to me the following when I was preparing the $630,000 tax story: “During the course of my investigation into Fatiaki I made friends with two Hong Kong based investigators who were looking into Fatiaki for the sec 138 of the Constitution hearing about him being a fit and proper person to be a judge (to be heard in Feb 08) - Paul Madigan and Elizabeth Yang. It was they who persuaded me to complain to George Langman about [the consultant’s] blackmail attempt, because FICAC owed me a favour for helping them get Fatiaki.”
Two e-mails, one from Ms Yang dated 1 November 2007 (“This is Elizabeth from Hong Kong. We had a meeting about two months ago regarding a tax case”) and another from Mr Madigan dated 16 January 2008 (“It was go[o]d to talk to you this afterno[o]n. I have thought about your situation a lot over the last couple of months. I arrived back in Fiji yesterday to do more FICAC work and then to prosecute the Fatiaki case…I wish you loads of luck and happine[s]s and please ke[ep] in touch”) to the former tax investigator confirms his assertion that he assisted the two Hong Kong-based prosecutors.
Commenting on Ms Yang’s e-mail, the former tax investigator said he had a meeting with Mr Madigan, Ms Yang and Mr Tikolevu in September 2007 in which he (the former tax investigator) gave the FICAC lawyers a photocopy of Justice Fatiaki’s confession. “They were very pleased and this was the start of our cordial relations. Providing this information was illegal but it was done out of the state of fear previously described,” said the former tax investigator. Lest we forget, Justice Paul Madigan!
C4/5 Editor's Note: For readers wanting more on this story, click on the links below. They'll take you to the stories Victor Lal did for the Fiji Sun in 2009, which signpost Justice Paul Madigan's involvement in the interim government's purge efforts.
http://www.fijisun.com.fj/main_page/view.asp?id=12577
http://www.fijisun.com.fj/main_page/view.asp?id=12619
Madigan's role in Fatiaki's removal
The Guilty Eight trial is not the first high-profile case Justice Paul Madigan has been involved in. As prosecutor and drafter of the FIRCA decrees, Madigan was instrumental in removing Chief Justice Daniel Fatiaki from his post. As High Court judge, he last week found Ratu Inoke Takaveikata and seven others guilty of conspiring to murder the military dictator Frank Bainimarama. Victor Lal wrote the following article for the Fiji Sun and it appeared on July 1, 2009.
How Fatiaki’s tax case arose 1/7/2009
In December 2007, a high-level meeting took place in the conference room of the Attorney-General’s chambers in Suvavou House between the interim Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, the Fiji Islands Revenue and Customs Authority’s then acting CEO, Jitoko Tikolevu, Paul Madigan and Elizabeth Yang, the two Hong Kong based Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) prosecutors and a top FIRCA tax investigator. At this meeting it was resolved to conduct an investigation into the suspended Chief Justice Daniel Fatiaki (pictured left) with a view to prosecuting him for tax avoidance, even though Justice Fatiaki had paid his taxes during the amnesty period.
On 10 December, the tax investigator who had presented FIRCA’s case to that above meeting in or about the afternoon of 7 December, wrote to Justice Fatiaki as follows: “This letter is to notify you that the Fiji Islands Revenue and Customs Authority is conducting an investigation into an allegation that you have breached the Income Tax Act by omitting income from your tax returns for the years ended 31 December 1998 to 2005.”
He also attached for Justice Fatiaki’s information a copy of the relevant parts of section 44 and section 96 of the Income Tax Act. The tax investigator, who is no longer employed with FIRCA, gave Justice Fatiaki the opportunity of participating in a formal interview to answer the above allegations against the suspended CJ.
“The interview will be conducted under criminal caution. At this interview you may choose to have your legal representative or another person present. The interview will be at a mutually convenient place and time. This may be during or outside working hours, at FIRCA premises or another place. If you wish to be interviewed could you please contact the undersigned by phone within 14 days to arrange this? As an alternative to an interview you may choose to make a written, signed statement concerning the allegation,” the investigating tax officer told Justice Fatiaki.
Now, the former tax investigator claims that the interim government used the tax system to get people for political reasons. He also claims that the information he gave to Mr Madigan and Ms Yang was under perceived threat, paving the way for action to remove Justice Fatiaki under the 1997 Constitution of Fiji.
Looking back at my notes, the former tax investigator had written to me the following when I was preparing the $630,000 tax story: “During the course of my investigation into Fatiaki I made friends with two Hong Kong based investigators who were looking into Fatiaki for the sec 138 of the Constitution hearing about him being a fit and proper person to be a judge (to be heard in Feb 08) - Paul Madigan and Elizabeth Yang. It was they who persuaded me to complain to George Langman about [the consultant’s] blackmail attempt, because FICAC owed me a favour for helping them get Fatiaki.”
Two e-mails, one from Ms Yang dated 1 November 2007 (“This is Elizabeth from Hong Kong. We had a meeting about two months ago regarding a tax case”) and another from Mr Madigan dated 16 January 2008 (“It was go[o]d to talk to you this afterno[o]n. I have thought about your situation a lot over the last couple of months. I arrived back in Fiji yesterday to do more FICAC work and then to prosecute the Fatiaki case…I wish you loads of luck and happine[s]s and please ke[ep] in touch”) to the former tax investigator confirms his assertion that he assisted the two Hong Kong-based prosecutors.
Commenting on Ms Yang’s e-mail, the former tax investigator said he had a meeting with Mr Madigan, Ms Yang and Mr Tikolevu in September 2007 in which he (the former tax investigator) gave the FICAC lawyers a photocopy of Justice Fatiaki’s confession. “They were very pleased and this was the start of our cordial relations. Providing this information was illegal but it was done out of the state of fear previously described,” said the former tax investigator. Lest we forget, Justice Paul Madigan!
C4/5 Editor's Note: For readers wanting more on this story, click on the links below. They'll take you to the stories Victor Lal did for the Fiji Sun in 2009, which signpost Justice Paul Madigan's involvement in the interim government's purge efforts.
http://www.fijisun.com.fj/main_page/view.asp?id=12577
http://www.fijisun.com.fj/main_page/view.asp?id=12619
Fijileaks: Fiji Sun has removed it from its archives
Lot 13: "The Land Has Eyes", Langman and Khaiyum
