High Court Judge, Justice Thushara Rajasinghe will deliver his ruling in the no case to answer application made in the Fiji Times sedition trial today.
In his response to the prosecution’s submission, Josaia Waqabaca’s lawyer Aman Ravindra-Singh said the prosecution is now trying to convince themselves that they have a real case.
He said those who read the article were obviously reasonable men and the only reaction was from the Permanent Secretary for i-Taukei Affairs.
Fiji Times Defence Lawyers L:R - Wylie Clarke, Devanesh Sharma, Marc Corlett and Aman Ravindra-Singh
Waqabaca’s lawyer says ill will is an emotion and there is no evidence of people being emotional or hostile.
Singh said there has been more things said against classes of the population in this court than in the evidence.
He said people are always speaking out and does that mean half of the population is seditious.
Anare Ravula’s lawyer Devanesh Sharma asked where is the evidence in the court that the letter has disturbed the tranquility of the state.
Sharma said the evidence must point to contractual duty.
He also asked where does it say that Anare Ravula reports to Hank Arts.
Sharma said that no expert witness has been called to show how a newspaper company works.
Marc Corlett who is representing Fred Wesley and Hank Arts said it is not proper to drag these people into court when the prosecution has no idea who saw the letter, and who drafted it and included it in the draft newspaper.
He said maybe it was Arts, Wesley or Ravula that was sleeping on the wheel or maybe it was all of them.
Corlett said the prosecution is saying to this court, well one of them must have done it.
Fiji Times lawyer Wylie Clarke said the state does not know who should be guilty.
He said if you look at the state’s transcripts, there is a lot of hypotheticals being thrown around.
Clarke said it is a very unfortunate situation that the defence has tried to analyse what real evidence is there.
