The green goons should read this article; they might learn something about the injustice in Fiji.
""""From the ABC
""VJ Narayan, the news director for Legend FM in Suva, was in court for the sentence and is one of the few Fijian journalists who is prepared to talk to international media.
"Men convicted of conspiring to murder Commodore Frank Bainimarama have all been handed down prison sentences by High Court judge, Justice Paul Madigan, this afternoon," he said.
The men were charged over a 2007 plot to assassinate Commodore Bainimarama. The self-appointed prime minister seized power in December 2006 in a military coup.
During his summing up, the judge found that a ninth man, Ballu Khan, was behind the plot to assassinate the Commodore – that is despite his case not going ahead after he won a stay of proceedings.
"There are a number of times Ballu Khan's… name came up in the course of the trial when evidence was presented in court and also when the verdict was read out," Mr Narayan said.
"The judge said he found the eight men guilty of conspiring with Ballu Khan to murder Commodore Bainimarama."
But Khan says he and the men are innocent.
"The fact that they've been sentenced is tragic for a crime they never committed," he said.
"We know this crime was committed by the military. The criminality belongs to the military, not to these people.
"None of them should be going to jail. They should have never been tried in the first place.
"This is a very sad day, another sad day in the chapter of Fiji's recent history."
Veteran Pacific journalist Michael Field says the details of the assassination attempt were never revealed to the court.
The Fairfax journalist was expelled from Fiji 18 months ago but still monitors the country closely.
"The evidence that was actually offered in court was based on hearsay evidence from two rather low-ranking operatives in the military intelligence service – a corporal and a major – who described going to these various meetings that were said to have occurred," he said.
"Somewhat more astonishing, in court they admitted that at no point had the now convicted plotters actually said that they wanted to assassinate Bainimarama but they had responded to these suggestions from the military spies that they assassinate Bainimarama.
"So this thing overall looks remarkably suspect."
Mr Field says the political situation in Fiji is unstable.
"Basically what's happening is that we have the military seemingly driving the whole agenda in the country and full of this sort of paranoia," he said.
"We have to remember that even today Fiji operates under a state of emergency. There's severe censorship, there's a ban on gatherings and the suggestion that there was a plot to assassinate Bainimarama is just justification for this suffocating military overlord rule of Fiji that goes on."
It is not yet known whether the men will appeal.
A spokesperson from the Fiji government was not prepared to comment to the ABC.
