It was always going to happen – FICAC withdrawing its charges of corruption against the former DPP after more than three years in which the dogged Kiwi with the “Keep Calm and Carry On”, sign had his name dragged through the mud yet refused to yield and has again emerged triumphant.
Those who conspired against Christopher Pryde – the Chief Justice, Salesi Temo, the Acting Attorney General, Siromi Turaga, Pryde’s replacement, Nancy Tikoisuva, her poisonous deputy, John Rabuku, and Barbara Malimali and Lavi Rokoika at FICAC – all seriously underestimated Pryde’s resolve.
They clearly believed the dapper white man with one foot in the 19th century would slink quietly away when they abrogated his seven-year contract as DPP so that the “new order” could install its own choice of chief prosecutor. Yet all along, Pryde has stubbornly refused to play ball.
The Chief Justice outrageously branded him a “thief” during the Tuilevuka Tribunal set up to rule on the charge of misbehaviour against him. It was on the basis of trumped up allegations of expenses fraud that the three Tribunal judges eventually rejected, effectively casting the head of the judiciary as a liar and now leaving Salesi Temo vulnerable to a defamation action.
With the charges against him now dropped, it is also open to Christopher Pryde to pursue a civil action for malicious prosecution. On what grounds? That he was cleared of misbehaviour by the Tuilevuka Tribunal and reinstated by the President, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, yet the state in the form of Nancy Tikoisuva came for him again with allegations of expenses fraud from the same file the Tribunal judges had rejected.
Within days of his exoneration by the President, Tikoisuva referred the file to FICAC. And it’s what happened after that that is emerging as the “smoking gun” in this affair, which threatens to blow up in the hands of these co-conspirators by exposing one of the most glaring instances of state corruption in the nation’s history.
What is emerging is deeply shocking for anyone who is concerned about the integrity of Fiji’s institutions of state – reports of wrongdoing on an industrial scale by those charged with protecting those institutions, including all the aforementioned individuals. Some of them – such as the Chief Justice, John Rabuku and Barbara Malimali – have already been cited for allegedly perverting the course of justice by the Ashton-Lewis Commission of Inquiry. But if their accusers are to be believed, the corruption goes much deeper to include the following:
- Accounts of conversations in the ODPP in which John Rabuku allegedly said that no matter what the Tribunal judges and the President said, Christopher Pryde would be prevented from returning as DPP and by any means possible. This includes Nancy Tikoisuva being ready with the recycled expenses allegations as soon as the reinstatement announcement was made.
- Serious allegations of corrupt conduct when those allegations were referred to FICAC. It is claimed that the designated investigating officer found no evidence of criminal conduct and reported that to Barbara Malimali with a recommendation that it was an administrative matter and no proceedings would succeed in court. In spite of this, Malimali allegedly ordered that the prosecution proceed and proceed it did even when Barbara Malimali was replaced by Lavi Rokoika.
A year ago, in July 2025, Lavi Rokoika announced publicly that Fiji would apply to the New Zealand authorities for the extradition of the by now departed substantive DPP, who was living quietly in a Christchurch suburb continuing to protest his innocence and trying to fight the unilateral decision by the Chief Justice to cut off his salary. (That action is still before the courts in Suva).
Was that extradition request ever made? We now have confirmation a full 12 months later that it wasn’t. When the charges against Pryde were finally dropped yesterday, we witnessed the astonishing spectacle of the Office of the Attorney General and FICAC blaming each other for the failure to proceed with the extradition request. Yet this is not the usual Fiji-style bumbling and incompetence.
The fact that this prosecution has been dropped tells us something equally startling. It wasn’t – as FICAC told the magistrate – because Christopher Pryde couldn’t be located to be served with the proceedings against him. That lie is exposed in Pryde’s statement below. It was because Fiji chose not to ask the New Zealand government to arrest him and forcibly return him to Fiji.
Now why would that be? Undoubtedly because no New Zealand judge presented with the evidence against the former DPP would send one of the country’s citizens back into the bear pit of Fiji. And the co-conspirators in the JSC, the AG’s Office, the ODPP and FICAC know it and have known it all along.
In characteristic liumuri fashion, they have strung this farce out until Christopher Pryde’s designated term in office ended in March and there was no chance of him returning. And they have strung out the magistrate, Yogesh Prasad, with their cock and bull story of not being able to find Christopher Pryde yet doing nothing to seriously force him to return to Fiji because there is simply no cause to do so.
The charges wouldn’t stick in New Zealand and we now know that even FICAC believed they wouldn’t stick in Fiji yet went along with this pantomime just to keep him at bay. Well now he has walked free with his reputation intact and the co-conspirators have been humiliated as the charges are dropped as they always should have been. Justice Fiji-style.
They think it is over but from what Grubsheet is hearing, their pain is just beginning. To follow is what Christopher Pryde is saying pubicly – the man who keeps calm and carries on keeping his powder dry. For now.
He doubtless just wants to get on with his life yet is determined to recoup the more than $300,000 he claims is still owed to him by the State and that case will be heard soon enough. But the problem for all the conspirators is that too many people around them know the truth of what has happened. And those accounts of the corruption of the state under the Rabuka government threaten to erupt like a volcano at the worst possible time.
They may, like Pryde, be determined to carry on but they won’t be calm. Because if the truth is out when a new government comes in – of three high court judges being contravened, a presidential order being subverted and false charges laid against someone who was already exonerated – that is perverting the course of justice and it carries serious jail time.
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