7 Jul 2005

Fiji political party calls for return of the death penalty

10:25 am on 7 July 2005

The Fijian Political Party, the SVT, has called for the re-introduction of the death penalty following the revelations this week of horrendous crimes committed by the man now known as the Rakiraki Ripper.

42-year old Dip Chand of Rakiraki has pleaded guilty to ten charges of rape of teenage girls.

Chand has also confessed to the murders of three other teenagers 12 days ago whose bodies he says he dumped at sea.

The spokesperson for the SVT party, Ema Druavesi, has told the FIJI SUIN the death penalty should be reintroduced to act as a deterrent for would be rapists and murderers.

Mrs Druavesi says men who commit such crimes should be hanged.

She says what Chand did to the Lata sisters should serve as a warning to all families and deserves a harsher penalty that suits the crime.

The death penalty was last used in Fiji in the early 1960s during colonial days and was abolished in the 1970s.

Meanwhile, police, navy divers, and volunteers searching for the bodies are using echo sounding gear used to find fish in their effort to locate the remains of the three sisters.