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The Australian publisher of the Fiji Times, booted out of the Pacific nation for alleged contempt of court, says the reasons for his deportation remain vague.
Rex Gardner, 58, arrived at Sydney International Airport on a flight from Nadi yesterday morning.
Fiji's interim government declared Mr Gardner, the newspaper's publisher and acting chief executive officer, to be a prohibited immigrant and ordered his removal from the country, the Fiji Times said on its website on Monday.
>>Fiji Times online: Publisher deported
The order was signed on Friday by the Permanent Secretary for Defence, Peniame Naqasima, and was served on Mr Gardner at his office on Monday afternoon, the report said.
"I haven't been treated badly, but it has been very unnecessary," Mr Gardner told reporters upon his arrival in Sydney.
"No reason was given for my deportation and I probably won't get one either because that's the way they operate - the dark of night and so on.
"So I'm ceremoniously booted out basically, and of course I'm the third publisher in about eight or nine months."
Mr Gardner had replaced previous Fiji Times publisher Evan Hannah who was deported in May last year for allegedly breaching his work permit.
Three months earlier, another Australian, Fiji Sun publisher Russell Hunter, was deported as a result of articles the paper published about an interim Cabinet minister who allegedly evaded tax.
Mr Gardner, who is a 40-year veteran of the newspaper industry, said he was left to presume his deportation related to a letter run by the Fiji Times.
Fiji's High Court last week fined the paper for publishing a letter which criticised the court's legal backing of the 2006 military coup.
"We ran a letter from someone in Brisbane that was deemed to be in contempt of court ... it slipped through the check system and the editor and I said, 'look, we're guilty of contempt of court', and went through the court process and I can only presume it relates to the court case," Mr Gardner said.
"My charges were thrown out last week. The editor did get two months jail suspended for two years. I presume it goes back to that, but as I said, no reason was given."
Mr Gardner said he believed the majority of people in Fiji were looking forward to a change in the nation's management.
"I think ... [they're] dying to see the end of it and dying to get to an election process whereby they can get a democracy going again there because the place surely needs it," he said.
- AAP
