Charlie Charters with his lawyer, Seforan Fatiaki.
The lawyer for Fiji-British dual citizen Charlie Charters confirms a permanent stay application has been served on FICAC by him based on FICAC material that has come to light during the disclosure process.
Seforan Fatiaki says they believe they have multiple grounds to support the stay application and that each ground is strong.
Fatiaki confirms the stay was lodged with the High Court on April 28th.
Charters was detained and then arrested as he was leaving Nadi Airport for Sydney on February 21st.
After two days’ detention, FICAC charged Charters with two counts of aiding and abetting an unidentified FICAC whistleblower to divulge confidential information about the organisation.
Fatiaki says the source or sources that FICAC allege provided Charters with information have still not been discovered more than two and a half months after he was charged.
Fatiaki says at no time has FICAC considered the possibility that Charters might have received the material from someone outside FICAC.
Charters has reported widely on FICAC on his facebook page detailing the controversial legal background of the acting FICAC Commissioner Lavi Rokoika including her key role in an unsuccessful fabricated-evidence plot hatched by her husband Tevita Vakalalabure to beat a drink-driving charge in the Cook Islands.
In 2008, Rokoika told police that she was the one driving, not her husband, when their car crashed at a police roadblock injuring two motorcyclists – a claim the judge dismissed as ‘inherently incredible’ with ‘no ring of truth about this at all’.
As a result of being found to have fabricated evidence, Vakalalabure was banned from acting as a lawyer in the Cook Islands for 12 years.
In documents filed by FICAC, the law enforcement agency alleged a whistleblower provided evidence that Charters used to report on a bungled attempt by FICAC to send an officer to New Zealand to serve papers on former director of public prosecutions Christopher Pryde.
In a written statement after the event, Pryde said FICAC’s actions had so alarmed his neighbours he had filed a police complaint and written to his local MP to complain about FICAC.
The second charge related to the publication of material which showed that Rokoika had hired her husband's niece as a FICAC counsel only weeks after Rokoika had controversially cleared the niece's father, her brother-in-law, Fiji Sports Council CEO Gilbert Vakalalabure, in a FICAC corruption investigation started by her predecessor.
Gilbert Vakalalabure has been suspended from his job as CEO of the Fiji Sports Council while the Minister of Youth and Sports, Jese Saukuru, has been sacked.
Sixteen separate allegations of misconduct by the FSC CEO are now being investigated by an independent forensic accountancy firm Pherrus, hired by the board, with a separate police investigation.
Fatiaki says in documents served as part of the disclosure process, FICAC confirm that on February 21st, Charters was offered a “show and tell” deal at Nadi Airport.
He says a FICAC officer has confirmed in writing that FICAC would have permitted him to leave the country without charge if he had provided a written statement detailing the identities of his alleged whistleblowers.
The stay application raises multiple grounds, including that Charters was offered release in exchange for disclosing his sources and charged only upon his refusal and that the acting Commissioner was conflicted by reason of Charters' reporting about her and her family and should have recused herself from the case.
Charters has pleaded not guilty to both counts and a trial date has been set for September 1st.
