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It was Tonga's day of "infamy and shame" and many of those behind the November 16 riots in 2006 are paying the price for their criminal behaviour.
But the country's Chief Justice, Anthony Ford, says he hopes Tonga has moved on.
A resident for nine years, Justice Ford
said Tongans were peace-loving people. "What we saw the day of the riots was completely out of character. I'd like to think the troubled times are all behind us."
He told the Weekend Herald from his Nuku'alofa office this week that the law had caught up with hundreds of Tongans involved in the rioting.
The courts had processed 374 cases linked to the riots, most guilty pleas involving the more minor charges like riotous assembly.
A guilty plea could earn an offender a discount on their sentence by about a third.
Justice Ford said all four of the Tongans charged with murder or manslaughter had been acquitted, while sedition charges involving five members of Parliament were yet to be heard.
The heaviest sentences, of 11 years imprisonment each, were for two men involved in the torching of the Molisis supermarket.
A 21-year-old carpenter had run into the supermarket with a 20-litre petrol container, and a 35-year-old father of six had poured it on a sofa and set it alight with a match.
They were both convicted of the destruction of a building by rioters.
Justice Ford, a former Wellington lawyer, said in his sentencing notes for the pair that the riots would be remembered forever as a day of infamy and shame.
"It was the day that all semblance of law and order disappeared and untrammelled anarchy prevailed."
More than half the business centre was destroyed causing millions of dollars of damage and an enormous economic impact.
Businesses gearing up for Christmas trading were brought to a standstill, and workers lost their jobs overnight. "In short, the effects of the riots of 16/11 were catastrophic in every sense of that term."
Justice Ford said the trials were being carried out in groups of up to 17 defendants.
Another 10 group trials should be completed by the end of the year.
In the first group a jury found all the defendants not guilty, but in the second group another jury found them all guilty.
A third round delivered mixed verdicts.
Justice Ford said 75 adults had admitted minor charges and were given diversion. Some cases had been discharged as the Crown had not offered evidence.
Justice Ford said the courts could not have coped with the volume of work but for an award-winning case management system.
