21 Mar 2003

Fiji coup accomplices found guilty of treason

9:09 am on 21 March 2003

The Fiji coup accomplices Josefa Nata and Timoci Silatolu have both been found guilty of treason.

This was the unanimous verdict of the five assessors at the end of the Suva High Court trial which began late last year.

Radio Fiji reports that Justice Andrew Wilson asked the assessors individually to give their opinions, first in the case of Silatolu and then Nata.

They were unanimous in their guilty verdicts for both men.

Justice Wilson adjourned the court till this afternoon when he will deliver his own judgement.

The maximum penalty for treason in Fiji is now life imprisonment after Parliament abolished the death penalty for it last year.

The new law came into effect after the coup front man George Speight's sentence of death for treason was immediately commuted to a life term.