Updated: 6:36am – SODELPA parliamentarian, Mosese Bulitavu and Fiji United Freedom Party President, Jagath Karunaratne have been convicted of one count each of sedition.
This also means that Bulitavu is no longer eligible to be a member of parliament as he is convicted of an offence that carries a sentence of more than 12 months.
He also cannot contest the elections for the next 8 years.
Under the constitution, a person may be a candidate for election to Parliament only if the person has not, at any time during the 8 years immediately before being nominated, been convicted of any offence under any law for which the maximum penalty is a term of imprisonment of 12 months or more.
Magistrate Deepika Prakash delivered her ruling on the sedition charge this afternoon.
Bulitavu and Karunaratne together with others between the 1st and 27th of August 2011 did an act namely the spray painting of words in different places between Nausori and Suva with the seditious intention of bringing into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the government of Fiji.
The sentencing hearing will take place on the 19th of April.
-Fiji Village
Featured image: SODELPA parliamentarian, Mosese Bulitavu and Fiji United Freedom Party President, Jagath Karunaratne have been convicted of one count each of Sedition
