Former Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended Police Commissioner Brigadier General Sitiveni Qiliho have been granted bail.
They have pleaded not guilty to a charge each of abuse of office.
They appeared before Magistrate Seini Puamau.
The bail conditions include two sureties to a sum of $10,000 each, they must not individually or through a third party interfere or attempt to interfere with the State's case against the defendants, they must not commit a crime while on bail, surrender their travel documents to the court registry, are prohibited from leaving Fiji and must provide a fixed address and not change it without the courts permission.
Bainimarama’s sureties are Ioane Naivalurua and Viliame Naupoto while Penioni Koliniwai and Jone Usamate are Qiliho’s sureties.
DPP lawyer, Jayneeta Prasad did not object to bail however, asked for strict conditions including curfew from 5pm to 8am, surrendering travel documents, reporting twice a week at the nearest police station, sureties and other conditions such as non interference with witnesses.
Prasad says there are concerns in relation to interference with witnesses as most of the witnesses are police officers.
She says their issues relate to tugging on loyalties, physical and verbal interference.
She says strict conditions to be imposed to mitigate the risk of interference.
Bainimarama and Qiliho’s lawyer, Devanesh Sharma objected to strict bail conditions especially the curfew from 5pm to 8am and says the alleged offence took place in July 2020 and the sense of urgency has passed.
Sharma says he does not see the need to have over the top bail conditions.
Magistrate Puamau told Prasad they have to substantiate with evidence the risk of interference and she cannot follow Prasad's logic.
Prasad requested if the Investigating Officer be produced in court to provide evidence of interference.
While giving evidence, Investigating Officer, Sergeant Sunia Maniala says gathering evidence was hard as they went to higher authorities for documents but it took time and he believed people were reluctant to give evidence.
He says there are a total of 9 pending cases against them at CID and because Qiliho and Bainimarama hold key positions and they sometimes have to question other officers.
When questioned by Magistrate Puamau if Qiliho or Bainimarama called directly to do or not to do something or has anybody filed a report with him or the Police Force regarding interference by the two, Maniala says they had not.
During cross examination, Maniala confirmed there were 30 witnesses in the case whereby 13 were police officers and others were professionals like former Permanent Secretary to the Office of the Prime Minister Yogesh Karan and the Director of Immigration.
He says all 30 statements are with Police.
The charges relate to a complaint laid with the police by the University of the South Pacific in July 2020 in relation to the activities of former staff members of the University.
It is alleged Bainimarama sometime in July, 2020 as the Prime Minister directed the Police Commissioner to stop investigation into a police complaint, in the abuse of the authority of his office, which was an arbitrary act prejudicial to the rights of the University of the South Pacific which is the complainant.
It is alleged that Qiliho on the 15th of July, 2020 as the Police Commissioner directed the Director of the Criminal Investigations Department, Serupepeli Neiko and Inspector Reshmi Dass to stop investigations into the police complaint by the USP, in the abuse of the authority of his office, which was arbitrary act of prejudicial to the rights to USP.
DPP has requested police to undertake further investigations into other matters arising from this case and more charges may be laid against other suspects in due course.
Present in court were Opposition MPs Parveen Bala, Premila Kumar, Jone Usamate, Ioane Naivalarua, Faiyaz Koya, Viliame Naupoto, Alvick Maharaj and Bainimarama and Qiliho's families.
The matter has been adjourned to the 11th of May.
