(5 Aug 2000) English/Nat
Rebel leader George Speight and a dozen men he led in storming parliament in May to overthrow Fiji's elected government pleaded not guilty to the first charges stemming from his coup.
Under heavy security, Speight and the group of 12 were brought on Saturday from the prison island off the capital, Suva, where they have been held for longer than a week to Suva Magistrate's Court.
Army marksmen patrolled the roof of the downtown court building, which was cordoned off and guarded by dozens of soldiers and police as a police convoy brought the suspects to back entrance.
The charges the men faced were minor, but prosecutors for the first time said that they would ignore an amnesty granted to the group by the military.
They are likely to charge Speight with crimes directly related to the parliament raid and two months of civil unrest which followed.
The charges included illegal weapons possession and unlawful assembly.
They are also accused of illegally burying a fellow rebel who was killed in a gun battle.
Speight also faces the far more serious charge of treason, and could be executed if convicted.
An investigation into that allegation is still under way.
Speight led a group of gunmen into parliament on May 19 and held dozens of officials for two months until the military met demands for an amnesty, eliminating the multiracial constitution and ousting the existing government.
Speight claimed that ethnic Indian Fijians have too much power and threaten indigenous Fijian culture.
The hostage standoff cast Fiji into turmoil and sparked international condemnation of the South Pacific nation's
abandonment of democracy.
Raids, hostage-taking, theft, beatings and arson have become commonplace in small ethnic Indian-dominated rural communities across Fiji since the coup.
Speight's court appearance came the day after the military extended a deadly crackdown on his supporters on Fiji's second-largest island, Vanua Levu.
As of late Friday, the military had killed one rebel supporter and arrested 125 in an operation to restore law and order to the island, a stronghold of Speight support.
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