QUESTIONS are being raised over the vetting and employment of a former Judiciary employee amid an investigation into the disappearance of about 50kg of cocaine exhibits from the High Court in Suva.
Acting Attorney-General and Justice Minister Siromi Turaga said a person with a recent serious criminal conviction would not ordinarily be considered suitable for employment in a sensitive environment such as the Judiciary.
Mr Turaga said this while responding to claims that the former employee was reportedly the boyfriend of a key suspect in the case.
Sources have alleged that the man had a previous criminal conviction and was recently removed from his duties. The claims have not been independently verified.
Mr Turaga said the period before a conviction could become “clean” depended on the nature and sentence of the offence.
“If you are convicted, let’s say a sentence of 10 years under the current Act, for your conviction to become clean under the new Criminals Act, it may not be six years, depending on the nature of the offence,” he said.
“So generally, if you have a valid conviction for the last 10 years, you cannot be employed in a place like the Judiciary.”
Mr Turaga said he could not qualify the claims and therefore refrained from commenting specifically on the matter.
It is unclear whether the man’s employment status and recent removal from his duties were connected to any internal security concerns.
There is also no confirmed evidence at this stage establishing that the former employee was involved in the disappearance of the cocaine exhibits or the replacement of the Rahman exhibits with flour.
According to sources, the individual is now employed by a relative of the key suspect.
Meanwhile, Police Commissioner Rusiate Tudravu has confirmed that most of the CCTV cameras at the High Court exhibit vault were not operating and that the biometric access system was also not operational during the period under investigation.
Police are now trying to establish when the systems stopped working and whether they were deliberately tampered with.
The missing exhibits are linked to two separate drug cases, the 2018 case involving former Australian horse trainer John Nikolic and the 2019 case involving Fiji-Canadian national Joshua Aziz Rahman.
Police confirmed 12.9kg of cocaine linked to the Nikolic case and seven bars from the 39.5kg Rahman exhibits are missing, while other Rahman parcels were replaced with a substance that tested negative for drugs.
Both cases concluded this year.
