Speight spared after day in gallows' shadow

By SCOTT MacLEOD and NZPA

George Speight, who wept uncontrollably when he was sentenced to death for treason yesterday, was last night spared the hangman's noose.

The lifeline came at 7 pm New Zealand time, when Fijian President Ratu Josefa Iloilo approved a recommendation from the nation's Mercy Commission.

The order means the coup leader's sentence will be changed to life in prison, which in Fiji usually means 10 years.

The decision came just hours after Speight pleaded guilty to a charge of treason. In the High Court at Suva, Justice Michael Scott donned a black cap and sentenced him to be hanged by the neck until he was dead - the only option under Fijian law.

"May the Lord have mercy upon your soul," said Justice Scott, as Speight bowed his head and wept.

He was charged after he stormed Parliament in May 2000, ousting the ethnic Indian-led Government of Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and taking MPs hostage, saying he wanted to restore power to ethnic Fijians.

Speight demanded that Fiji Indians be banned from politics and urged that sugar fields be abandoned for more traditional pursuits such as cattle and dairy farming.



Ten of his co-accused pleaded guilty to lesser charges, carrying a maximum of seven years in jail.

In a flood of calls to New Zealand talkback radio, Fiji Indians living here praised the death sentence, but human rights campaigners were appalled.

Speight spent an anxious afternoon in prison while aides tracked down the President and drove him to Suva, a Fiji Times reporter said.

By signing the order, Ratu Josefa saved Speight a long wait, as a bill repealing the death penalty is moving sluggishly through Parliament.

A spokesman for Fiji's Parliament, Alifereti Bulivou, said the Penal Code Amendment Bill might not be debated this week, and Speight would have had to wait until Parliament sat again on April 2.

But the Mercy Commission, comprising the Attorney-General and two civilians, met in the afternoon and passed on the recommendation to the President.

The day started with Speight looking calm and confident as he walked into court wearing a traditional sulu. His Australian lawyer, Ron Cannon, said there would be a guilty plea to help close the nation's ethnic wounds.

"This would then put the matter to rest and we hope will be accepted by the community as our contribution to the stability of the country and to reconciliation."

There was remarkably little trouble on Fiji's streets when the death penalty was imposed.

Fiji Visitors Bureau chief executive Sitiveni Yaqona peered towards the courthouse from his office and said there was no sign of tension.

Mr Yaqona said Fiji's tourism industry was improving from the hammering it took when Speight and his supporters overthrew the Government.

Last year, visitor numbers were up 17 per cent.

He and all other Fijians who spoke to the Herald said they expected the death sentence to be commuted.

The principal archivist at Fiji's National Archive office, Setareki Tale, said nobody had been hanged since September 9, 1964.

The managing director of Auckland's Radio Tarana, Robert Khan, said the station was flooded with calls from Fiji Indians who were happy at the death sentence but were worried that it would be commuted.

"They do agree with the sentence, but they've lost faith in the Fiji legal system," he said.

Representatives of Amnesty International and the Howard League for Penal Reform said they opposed the death penalty and had been prepared to take action if Speight's sentence had stood.

Feature: the Fiji coup

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