The author and rugby identity, Charlie Charters, has taken his campaign to undermine the Commission of Inquiry into the Malimali affair from the pages of Facebook to the pages of Saturday’s Fiji Times with an extraordinary double-page feature that is a naked attempt to derail the Ashton-Lewis Commission of Inquiry into the Malimali affair.
Charters reveals that he has written to the President, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, not about Justice David Ashton-Lewis‘s findings – which have revealed widespread corruption in the criminal justice system from the Chief Justice down – but about alleged discrepancies in the mechanics of the COI Report’s release.
It is nitpicking on an industrial scale by a man who admits that he has been a friend of 30 years standing of one of those adversely mentioned in the COI Report – the President of the Law Society, Wylie “Coyote” Clarke – and has been campaigning on behalf of Clark and the dismissed attorney general, Graham Leung, to undermine the COI and its findings against them.
The importance of today’s article is twofold. 1/
- The Charters attack on the COI is being given front-page billing by the Fiji Times, with a pointer to the main article across two pages down-paper, when the Fiji Times itself has been corruptly manipulating the findings of the COI Report with highly selective extracts designed to suit its own agenda. The nation’s traditional newspaper of record has resolutely refused to give comprehensive coverage to Justice David Ashton-Lewis’s actual findings when it would have been expected to do so on any basic standard of journalism the world over.
- The Fiji Times lawyer who clears its most important articles for publication is Richard Naidu, who also happens to represent the Deputy Prime Minister, Biman Prasad. We know that Richard Naidu sent a letter to Francis Puleiwai – the former FICAC acting deputy commissioner – asking her to delay taking action against his client before Barbara Malimali was parachuted into the corruption watchdog, stopped Biman Prasad from being charged with making a false declaration to the Elections Office and shut down the case against him.
- Richard Naidu is a close friend of Wylie Clarke, who the COI eviscerates for his role in the events at FICAC on September 5 last year, in which Clarke was part of a group of lawyers who “rescued” Malimali after Francis Puleiwai had arrested her. The COI Report finds that Clarke remained silent when the Chief Registrar, Tomasi Bainivalu, relayed a message to Puleiwei from the Chief Justice, Salesi Temo, that no charge she laid, including against Biman Prasad, would be heard by any court in Fiji. And in doing so, has left himself open to a charge of perverting the course of justice.
- Charlie Charters discloses his 30-year friendship with Wylie Clarke in the footnote of today’s article. But they are also both mutual friends of Richard Naidu. And Richard Naidu is Charlie’s entre to the Fiji Times, the paper’s lawyer who we can be sure signed off on today’s article and may well have had a hand in its inception. Because Charlie Charters and Richard Naidu worked at the Fiji Times as reporters before Naidu went into the law and Charters went into sports management. And they maintain a relationship.
- So we have an influential trio of Charlie Charters, Richard Naidu and Wylie Clarke who all have an interest in destroying the credibility of the Ashton-Lewis Commission of Inquiry and its findings being rejected. Wylie Clarke to save himself, Richard Naidu to save Biman Prasad (and perhaps himself if the reports are true that he has been interviewed by police) and Charlie Charters prevailed upon to employ his writing skills, or offering them, to defend their mutual interests, along with another old mate – the sacked attorney general Graham Leung. Yes, Suva is that incestuous. The collective influence these people wield is that pernicious.
The second reason today’s article is important is that Charlie Charters hasn’t just confined his campaign to prop up his mates to social media. He reveals that he has written directly to the President, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, raising his concerns about the Ashton Lewis Report. And here’s why that is important:
- We know that the President is dragging his feet in implementing the recommendations of the COI.
- He is particularly dragging his feet on the COI’s recommendation that the Chief Justice, Salesi Temo, be suspended and a tribunal set up to try him for misbehaviour after it found him open to allegations of abuse of office, perjury and obstructing and perverting the course of justice.
- Charlie Charters knows that the President and Chief Justice are related by marriage and of the persistent rumours at the highest levels of the state that Ratu Naiqama is at odds with the Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, about what should happen to Temo and the rest of those adversely named in the COI Report.
QUESTION 1/
Why would Charlie Charters write to the President – the Head of State – with his concerns about the COI Report?
The President is meant to be above politics and represent the interests of all Fijians. He is a figurehead who is constitutionally obliged to take advice from the elected Prime Minister. He is not meant to be an exalted complaints department for anyone unhappy with the way the country is being governed. Those complaints should be directed to the nation’s politicians, in this case the Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, who set up the Ashton-Lewis COI in the first place.
QUESTION 2/
Why would Charlie Charters not raise his concerns with the Prime Minister, bypassing him altogether and going straight to the Head of State?
ANSWER TO BOTH:
Because Charlie Charters is trying to exploit what he knows to be the President’s reluctance to act of the COI findings in the first place and is going to him in the hope that he is providing him with additional ammunition to “go slow” on the Report and use his influence and position to oppose any move by the Prime Minister to implement its findings. And also knowing that Ratu Naiqama is Rabuka’s chief and the PM is therefore unlikely to insist.
There is only one word to describe the unholy alliance that is trying to derail the Supreme Court Commission of Inquiry – corrupt. Yes, you too, Charlie.
Normally the patchwork of interconnecting alliances, trafficking in influence, mutual protection rackets and backscratching that destroy the integrity of any nation are more difficult to discern and unravel. But not in Fiji. And to a large extent, it relies on people having short memories or not being aware of “who is up who” – to use a colloquial Australian expression.
Make no mistake, Fiji. Charlie Charters, Wylie Clarke, Richard Naidu and Graham Leung are all up each other. Big time.
And also make no mistake. The concerted effort by these individuals to destroy the integrity of the COI and the unprecedented corruption and wrongdoing it exposes risks destroying the integrity of the nation as a whole.
They are doing it for themselves – to protect their own positions and those of their friends and associates – not for the rest of us. And they must be defeated.
POSTSCRIPT:
Nothing in his declaration about Charlie’s relationship with Richard Naidu as former journalists on the Fiji Times and their continuing relationship. Yet we can only imagine the volume of emails, texts and Viber or Whatsapp calls between Charlie Charters, Richard Naidu, Wylie Clarke and Graham Leung over recent days and weeks that would have produced this outcome.
It is a conspiracy involving all four to subvert the COI and ensure that its recommendations are never implemented.
It’s also worth reprising a Grubsheet reader’s comment from yesterday that has even more resonance given today’s Fiji Times article.
I don’t know what this article is about. But I’ll just sit and pretend that I know everything so that I look cool.
“Slacker”, ignorance was once something to be ashamed of but now people like you advertise it. Which isn’t as cool as you think.
All you need to know is this:
Charlie Charters is mates with some of the people in trouble because of the COI Report. They are “up each other” (surely you understood that bit). So he has written to the President raising doubts about the COI Report knowing that the President will take notice because he doesn’t like it either. But that’s not good for the rest of us.
Got it? Cool.
Like an angel with cruel and merciless intent. Go forth, young boy and you’ll become a legend.
The new CRW (Charlie, Richard, Wylie) team may think that Fijians are stupid enough to embrace all the verbal diarrhea from the detractors of the rule of the law and justice, But believe me we are intelligent enough to know their actual agenda.
Of course the honorary itaukei Charlie is being used by Wylie and others in pursuance of their own clear agendas. A win win for the entire trio and other backers such as Leung.
The COI report, done in a record time, remains one of the most accurate, candid and transparent records of the current rot in the judiciary and the involvement of people from both the political and judicial arms in the blatant and crudest interference in governance.
To ignore this report and not take action will not only ensure this untreatable cancer has set in but development partners whose number one criteria in assistance is governance will definitely scrutinise the situation closely.
Go ahead Mr President and PM, destroy whatever remains of Fiji under your watch, if you will.
The disclaimer at the end of his article that he has not discussed the article with Willy Wiley is the whole truth I guess. The truth is he has not discussed it with anyone else implicated in the COI report either. That is the whole truth that he has not conspired with anyone to write to the president. He is an independent, unbiased, professional, untwisted, full of integrity journalist – just like the CJ. Fiji and this government and the civil service is full of such kind of people. That is why Fiji is booming. The rest of the world should learn from Fiji about these characteristics. The man is here to save Fiji. He is a legend in his own mind.
The utter arrogance of thinking his opinion and writing is of more merit and importance than a qualified and experienced Supreme Court Judge who sat assessing evidence for weeks on end!
Graham, the actions of Charlie Charters, who mind you wasn’t part of the COI, is being used out of desperation by those implicated.
It’s like he is a mule doing the work of others.
Charlie is a foreigner who does not pay tax to the Fiji Government. The President should ignore him.
He’s actually a non-resident Fiji citizen. And the Judge in the COI Report already says it doesn’t matter if people don’t pay tax in Fiji. They still have a right to lodge complaints.
That is what right thinking persons would do. But Fiji lacks such people in high places. I personally think the President does not have all his faculties, let alone the fact that he is racist.
Well articulated on Charlie’s article, GD.
In their desperation, those named in the COI Report for alleged abuse of office and perversion of justice are now enlisting allies to discredit the Ashton-Lewis findings.
They are raising irrelevant arguments in an attempt to deflect attention from the report’s substance—hoping to justify or derail its conclusions.
This is precisely why some feel emboldened to appeal directly to the President, who continues to stall any action on Chief Justice Temo.
To the public, the situation is clear: there are deliberate efforts underway to undermine the Report, with the hope that the President — whose actions have raised serious concerns about impartiality — will dismiss its findings. But such a dismissal will not come easily.
Only those individuals directly implicated in the report appear to be working the hardest to discredit it. If they have done nothing wrong, why are they so concerned? Why not welcome a transparent investigation and allow the process to unfold? After all, this is the very justice system they have long claimed to support.
It is often the guilty who work hardest to avoid scrutiny, and that is exactly what we are witnessing.
Justice Ashton-Lewis should reaffirm the integrity of the COI report and speak out against these attempts to discredit it.
The President’s continued refusal to stand down the Chief Justice raises serious questions about the credibility of our independent institutions.
Sitiveni Rabuka’s lack of decisive leadership and failure to act are only deepening the crisis and delaying much-needed accountability.
On a day that most Hindus in Fiji are tormented by the sacrilige act in Samabula temple by an itaukei who came with rod i.e. intent so planned, out comes Fiji Times with the heading ” May 14″. There is either no sensitivity at Fiji Times or the editor lack ability to join the atmospheric dots.
Charlie is doing what white man has always done…divide and rule. Nothing surprising.
Meanwhile, apart from bread, Hot Bread Kitchen making a killing from sales as price of bread keeps going up. Why doesn’t Charlie use his influence to lobby the government to keep bread prices down? Ahh, then he won’t be able to keep his lifestyle.
He has chosen to be a tool embracing corruption.
It’s is widely accepted that many guilty people are found ‘ not guilty’ of crimes when they are proven beyond reasonable doubt, after an appeal uncovers a minute technicality that has been shown to be the fault of the investigating parties or the defence Lawyers.
This is there to protect the innocent when procedural errors are serious enough to call into question the guilt of the defendant.
Unfortunately, this can also exonerate those that are clearly, in the opinions of the jury, guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
Charlie is merely trying to muddy the waters in this case to help his mates out. Unconscionable conduct is what he is guilty of, in my humble opinion.
Charlie : Mirror Mirror on the wall, who is the stupidest of them of all?
Mirror: you, Charlie
Charlie : what, I thought you it was Manoa?
Mirror : yes Charlie, Manoa is stupid, but after your recent outburst, you are a stupid, dim, moron, dunce,jackass, thick, dumb head, thick moron. In fact, I can add that you are all foam, no beer or in your language, you are running on empty upstairs. Can you understand that Charlie?
Charlie : no I can’t
Sona Rolex Snake SLR has heaps of accountability and decisiveness.
And an excellent accountant he is too to have saved every penny from his bottle recycling days to have acquired a gold fountain pen, gold Rolex, and a 1.4m mansion in Muanikau in quick order.
Let the poor adulterer, treasonous, racist bastard enjoy the fruits of others labour so freely offered to him by friends expecting nothing in return.
The PM position and income are merely a side hustle with added travel perks running into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And do not forget to salute and hail the Sona Rolex Snake for clearing the pond of all the mean and menacing crocodiles, titties and all.
The runt is a genius.
.
“The runt is a genius”.
He certainly thinks so. And guess who put him there?
After the leak of the COI report, the Fiji Law Society was receiving a lot of bad press on social media and blog sites due to Wylie’s compromised position and his defence of the indefensible in that FICAC room. People were calling for Wylie’s resignation as the President of the FLS and others had some lawyers had written to him demanding that he explain himself and after that he MUST resign if the FLS was to retain its integrity. Feeling the heat from his members, Wiley Wylie issued through the Fiji Law Society a statement thst was emailed to all the lawyers that the FLS understands it is under scrutiny and that it’s members are unhappy with the adverse press caused by Wylie. The FLS (or rather Wylie using the FLS as a mouth piece) said they do not trust the leaked reports so they will not comment on an unofficial document, but that they would make a public statement explaining the FLS’ position once the COI report was officially released. Of course, the bastards probably thought or were given false hope that the COI report would never be officially released and that they would never have to explain themselves to the members of the FLS.
Well…the COI report has officially been released 2 weeks ago and Wiley the Wanker (ooops…the FLS) has not said a word since then.
Where is your explanation FLS? Explain why Wylie was even in the FICAC room when he wasnt Barbara’s lawyer? Is it because he didnt know the law and rules around this? Explain why Wylie kept dismissing the FICAC officers when they kept asking to commence the interview and instead insisted that no one do anything until the rascal, lousy, mousey Chief Registrar arrived? Is it because Wylie the Wanker knew that the CR was going to come with the Mother of all Threats that would save Wylies friend Barbaric Malimali (no readers, that is not autocorrect. My autocorrect feature has gone to Tuvalu for the night, to swim in the sea with a High Court trial Judge after which my autocorrect will be carried up the stairs in its wet swimsuits and then ravished for the night by the said Judge). Why/How the hell did the President of the Law Society hear a horrendous threat being made on the Rule of Law by the thug Chief Justice and the incompetent Chief Registrar that completely raped the doctrine of separation of powers and yet remain disgracefully quiet when as the President of the FLS he should have been completely outraged and held the CJ and CR to account for that threat? Is it because Wylie doesnt know about legal ethics, rule of law and good governance (ironically the same things he went to lecture Frances Pulewai about).
So….Wylie Wanker Clarke and Fiji Law Society – where the hell is the FLS statement you promised you unaccountable bastards!
Here is a full and unedited extract of what Wylie said to FLS members when he was facing the heat…sent using FLS as a mouthpiece because he used his FLS President email address and the entire FLS Committee was exclusively in copy. So much promise that he will respond with answers but not a tiny word since the official report has been released. FICAC witnesses did say in the COI hearing that Wylie was very very angry when FICAC refused to cave under his pressure and of course that Wylie didnt react, correct or hold to account when the CJ/CR threatened FICAC with a clear and direct interference with their powers. Any law student knows that separation of powers is a Rule of Law doctrine (lesson 101).
It definitely looks like Wylie is now awfully quiet because he has been publicly caught butt naked with his pants down while the Rule of Law was being raped by all the lawyer attendees in that FICAC room. And Wylie…as the gatekeeper of the legal professions members, stood there watching it happen, encouraging it happen, and protecting all those that did it. Guilty as he’ll, and as a lawyer (let alone as President of the Law Society) there is no redeeming oneself from this total and utter loss of integrity and ethics. Anyway. Here is the email he sent promising an explanation:
“Dear Colleagues
Most of you know that what are alleged to be parts of the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the appointment of Ms Malimali to FICAC are now appearing on social media. These include alleged findings of impropriety against Laurel Vaurasi, the immediate past President of the Society, and me as current President.
I have given a great deal of thought to what I should say to members of our Society in view of these developments. As you know, the Society has publicly called at least three times for the full official release of the Report so that all those the subject of accusations in it know everything it says and can have a fair opportunity to respond.
At this point I think it is only proper that I wait for the official release of the Report before commenting further. It would be improper, in my view, to respond to what is alleged in social media, particularly in light of the fact there appears to be more than one version of the report in circulation, based on analysis of the signature blocks appearing in the letter of transmittal. However, if the delay in the official release of the Report continues next week, I will consult the Council of the Society on whether I should respond to what is being circulated on social media.
I appreciate the many messages of support received from you. You will hear again from me soon.
Kind Regards
Wylie Clarke”
There is a phrase in Wylie Clarke’s letter to FLS members which is repeated in the Charlie Charters article that points to collusion between the two.
“There appears to be more than one version of the report in circulation, based on analysis of the signature blocks appearing in the letter of transmittal”.
“Signature blocks?” Ask yourself this: Would Charlie Charters independently be aware of “signature blocks” in correspondence from the COI to the President, whether he is in Hong Kong, Qatar or Yorkshire?
Much more likely that this has all come from Wylie Clarke, which makes a mockery of Charlie’s claim that Clarke hasn’t been involved in the production of his article.
So on the balance of probabilities, this is what is most likely to have occurred:
Wylie Clarke secures Charlie’s agreement to write the article to achieve their mutual objective to discredit the COI and provides him with the “ammunition”. And then their mutual friend, Richard Naidu, engineers its passage into the Fiji Times.
More on all of this to come.