The appeal hearing for former Prime Minister, Laisenia Qarase will continue today before Fiji Court of Appeal judges, Justice William Callanchini, Justice Eric Basnayake and Justice Suresh Chandra.
Qarase’s Queens Counsel counsel from Australia, Remy van de Wiel will make further submissions in court today after the submission by FICAC’s Senior Counsel Michael Blanchflower.
Blanchflower said that there were no objections to the summing up by the trial judge and to the bundle of documents provided as evidence in Qarase’s Fijian Holdings Limited trial last year.
He said the three assessors in the trial deliberated on the evidence for 2 and a half hours.
He said the assessors were acutely aware that the incidents occurred in 1991 and 1992.
Blanchflower also stresses that the assessors were given first hand evidence and credible witnesses in the trial.
He questions why the matters being raised during the appeal were not raised in the trial.
FICAC’s counsel further said that the trial judge, Justice Priyantha Fernando did a thorough analysis of the counts and he summarized it very clearly for the assessors.
He said the judge directed the three assessors and told them that they are the judges of facts.
Blanchflower highlighted that during the redirection, both the prosecution and defence were satisfied, and after the summing up by the judge there was silence in court. According to him, no further questions were raised by the defence counsel in Qarase’s trial.
Blanchflower also said there was no direction on miscarriage of justice in the first notice of appeal.
He noted that the notice of additional grounds was never mentioned in the grounds of “good character” dated 19th November, last year.
Qarase was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment by High Court Judge, Justice Priyantha Fernando in August last year after he was found guilty of six counts of abuse of office and three counts of discharging his duty with respect to property in which he had a private interest.
Story by: Vijay Narayan & Tokasa Rainima
