Suva, April 4
The leader of one of Fiji's main opposition parties, former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, was convicted on tax charges today, ruling him out of this year's election in the coup-plagued Pacific nation.
Chaudhry, who became Fiji's first ethnic Indian prime minister in 1999 but was ousted in a coup a year later, was found guilty on three counts of giving false information to tax authorities about bank accounts in Australia.
The conviction means the Fiji Labour Party leader cannot run in Fiji's general election in September, the first to be held in the country since acting prime minister Frank Bainimarama seized power in a bloodless coup in 2006. Under Fiji's constitution, anyone who has been convicted of a criminal offence in the past eight years cannot stand in the election.
No comments:
Post a Comment