Last week, we focused our attention on the unnamed characters who featured so strongly in the aftermath of May 1987. I zoomed onto the most illustrious of these because he featured at the centre of the “Guns of Lautoka” saga. He was a Fiji man from Raiwaqa who moved from being a local operator to the international stage and flirted within the arms trade circuit following the 1987 coup. Let’s continue with this same character here as there is more to share.
Movements before Naboro
IN the last article, we covered how I first came across the character who was to later emerge as Rafik Khan (among his many aliases). This was in 1975 when I was in Form 2 and our teacher asked us if we knew who “Fiji’s Jesus Christ” was. There were a few holes in my last article, so let me fill them in here. Rafik was sent by his father to Melbourne in February 1961 where he attended high school. Shortly afterwards, he had a series of brushes with the law and was deported to Fiji in 1964.
He then popped up in New Zealand and was deported from there to Canada in July 1966 after being convicted for making false statements to police, theft and unlawful handling of goods. In 1969 he was deported from North America to some unknown destination. But in 1969 he was reported to have appeared in court in Australia charged with assault. Khan was again before the New South Wales courts in 1972 and was sentenced to two years jail with a non-parole period of nine months for stealing a car.
After this, he was deported by Australian authorities to Canada on April 19, 1973, but he surfaced in Fiji that same year and established Budget Marketing Corporation (BMC) in Raiwaqa from where he fleeced locals and disappeared with thousands of dollars. The police were simply left scratching their heads. The devious scheme he used was a pre-curser to the Ponzi schemes that proliferated here in the 1990s. Rafik was obviously well ahead of his time.
Our con-star was then apprehended by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for a string of crimes after fleeing Fiji in 1973. In 1975, he was jailed for six years in Canada for attempted fraud involving $500,000. He was then known as Dr Ralph Khan. The “saviour” tag was attained at around this time. It was obvious that Khan was able to move across borders (and jails) like a ghost. He had managed to glide through, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA with little checks. And all the time, he was a felon with multiple convictions.
Appearance in Naboro
It is said that one’s roots resonate and have the strongest claim on one’s life. This held true for Rafik as he once again popped up in Fiji in 1981, engaged in his favourite pastime, and was jailed for five years by the Suva Magistrate’s Court for three counts of fraud and three counts of obtaining money by false pretences involving $6139. For the first time we had some real details on his colourful life as Khan admitted 28 previous convictions in Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Bermuda and Canada. After being registered at Korovou jail, he was processed and transferred to Naboro Medium Security Prison in 1982.
The Naboro Prison Complex constitutes Maximum Corrections Centre, Medium Security Prison, Minimum Security Prison and a Pre-Release Centre. The last of these facilities was commissioned in 1980. Prisoners are carefully vetted at Suva Prison (Korovou) before being allocated to these centres. Within the Naboro Complex, they graduate through the system through stages until their release. Rafik Khan’s arrival at the Medium (as it is called) marked the beginning of his journey through jail in Fiji.
In prison, he quickly established himself as a character apart. He managed to convince the authorities that he had a number of cases to appeal and that in the interests of fairness and justice he should be allocated time for preparing these legal presentations. He was thus given half day off to work on these legal matters with access to additional assistance should the need arise. And it did as he called for law books (like Archbold) and case files to be borrowed from the courts and delivered to him in prison.
Now the legal whiz (very much superior to your common convict), Rafik Khan walked in prison with a canvas bag (sewed in prison) and Archbold clasped importantly to his side whenever he strutted to the prison library for legal work — this happened daily on weekdays until he was transferred to other parts of the prison complex on his way to the Pre-Release Centre. There he met a dreamer and romantic who we shall call Parmod for the sake of this narration.
Prisoners typically spend a short period of time prior to their release at the Pre-Release Centre. The conversations are invariably about regrettable mistakes, missed opportunities and ambitious and determined plans for life after prison. Parmod’s main regret was that he had not been able to experience a romantic journey to a promising marriage filled with conjugal bliss. Rafik, of course, was the acknowledged expert in this. After all, he had managed to work through the labyrinthine requirements of an oil sheik to snare his own bride even though she escaped as soon as she was able to see through his ruse.
Rafik thus became Parmod’s guru at the Pre-Release Centre. He was going to make sure that his new-found friend, who was so wrongly and unfairly imprisoned, finally got a fair crack at life. There were so many lovely girls who would give their lives for such a promising and good-looking guy like Parmod if only they were introduced correctly. So many people were hard done by because nobody believed in them, and society failed to recognise the untapped potential that resided in them. And Parmod lapped it up like a puppy at the milk bowl.
My sources report that Rafik was released before Parmod and the parting of the two blood bothers was a sight to behold. There were promises that Rafik would come back for Parmod. Two weeks later, Parmod was released and lo and behold, that Friday afternoon a glistening black Datsun 280C with tinted glasses glided down the road to the Pre-Release Centre. Everyone looked in awe as a suited Rafik Khan got off and picked Parmod up with a bearhug. The car left as mysteriously as it had arrived leaving the watchers absolutely stunned and mystified.
One week later, it was heard through the coconut wireless that Parmod was back in Korovou jail. A bit of research revealed the following. After picking Parmod up from Naboro, Rafik drove to Nadi where he bought some impressive clothes and a travel bag for the newly released convict. From there, they headed to an impressive house/business somewhere in the proximity of Nadi International Airport.
Rafik went in to conduct his business while Parmod changed into travel clothes as he was apparently going to join Rafik on a flight out shortly. Parmod drove the car to the airport, Rafik got off and told Parmod to drop the car off at the place they had just come from as it had been bought by the person he had been talking to there. When Parmod arrived to drop off the car, he was nabbed by police who had been looking for a lost rental black Datsun 280C. Rafik had apparently changed the rental plates to normal ones.
It is not clear what Parmod was thinking as he was being taken away in handcuffs while Rafik was probably wringing his hands in triumphant relief as he flew out of Fiji to continue his enterprise. The sad part is that Parmod’s romanticising about life outside prison was now firmly planted in the stark reality of another stint behind bars. Whether he fully came down to Earth is also not clear.
I will develop this profile further next week as Rafik Khan was back in Fiji shortly afterwards — this time he was Mohammed Khan. We will get to the Guns of Lautoka shortly. Until then, take care.
- Dr Subhash Appanna is a senior USP academic who has been writing regularly on issues of historical and national significance. The views expressed here are his alone and not necessarily shared by this newspaper or his employers.
