New website theatens to expose ‘Fiji’s traitors’

FIJI – Police in Fiji say they have not received any reports in relation to the hacking of a prominent anti-government website.

FijiLeaks has for several years featured high-profile leaks and broken key stories on corruption in politics and business in Fiji, with its editor, Victor Lal, living in self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom.

Lal says private email correspondence between himself and others in Fiji was recently hacked and then posted on a newly-established website, FijiLeaks Exposed, which states that it is dedicated to exposing contributors to Lal’s FijiLeaks, calling them “traitors”.

On its front page FijiLeaks Exposed says: “This website will expose the owner of FijiLeaks, Rajesh Victor Lal, and all the ‘patriotic’ Fijians who have been feeding information to him over the years. To all the readers, the traitors will be exposed here.”

While there was no one taking responsibility for the hacking on that site, a Facebook page entitled Kishore Kumar Publication features a man called Kishore Kumar admitting to the hacking and declaring a “cyber war” on who he sees as dissidents of Fiji’s Government.

“It delights me to hack into anti-government networks. Hacking is illegal but when you spread bullshit news about the government, we have a reason to compensate hacking your system,” he said.

Lal had confirmed that his laptop was hacked, and he was locked out of three different email addresses, as well as his personal Facebook page.

A Fiji police spokesperson, Ana Naisoro, said there have not been any complaints in relation to the hacking.

However the FijiLeaks site said the British Cybercrime Unit as well as email hosts may be called upon to investigate.

Kishore Kumar’s Facebook page also features an attack on journalist Graham Davis, who had previously worked for the Fiji government’s Ministry of Information, and whose private emails to Victor Lal were published on FijiLeaks Exposed.

Kumar branded him a “snake” and vowed to “destroy all enemies of Fiji.”

Davis posted back on Kumar’s Facebook page: “If I find out that it was really you and your associates who published my innocuous exchanges with Victor Lal on FijiLeaks Exposed, violated my privacy, published my email address, accused me of associating with a traitor and called me a snake, then rest assured that I will come after you with everything I’ve got.

“Fiji is a democracy, not North Korea, and I will converse with whoever I bloody well want. I have never been a source for Victor Lal and Fijileaks but it is not illegal to have contact with him, in stark contrast with your own actions that you acknowledge are illegal and deserve to face the full force of the law.”

Kumar responded: “Davis, go and sit on top of a sharp red hot iron rod. It is a cyber war Graham Davis. Accept that fact. Victory belongs to Fiji not to you. Take note of that.”

The FijiLeaks Exposed site also alleges it found “a lot of child pornography on Victor Lal’s hard drive” and says it plans to intensify its postings in order to “rip him naked in public”.

The recently-published site also singles out two other prominent Fijians who may have had some contact with Victor Lal in the past.

The site threatens Vijay Narayan, the news director of Communications Fiji Ltd, which publishes Fiji Village and broadcasts a range of radio stations, as well as the prominent businesswoman Mere Samisoni.

It threatens to “expose” Narayan if he does not stop emailing Lal.

Narayan could not respond in time to questions about the website.

It refers to a business deal that Lal appears to have had with Samisoni and also threatens her not to have anything more to do with Lal.

Samisoni declined to comment on the threats but said there needed to be some clarification around the laws of cyberspace, so that people understood that hacking is a criminal offence.

Lal, who has suspended publishing to allow the British Cybercrime Unit as well as his email hosts to investigate the hacking, published a number of emails and photos of text messages that appear to implicate the prominent Fiji businessman Jay Dayal.

Dayal said he does not know and has never met Kumar and has had no recent dealings with Lal.

Kumar, who claims to run a not-for-profit research unit in Fiji, said that he had provided assistance to the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Education as well as political parties.

He said he had pledged 6000 hours of “social media support” for the government’s Fiji First Party, in the lead up to the 2018 elections.

“We will justify our hacking in the interest of national security and supporting and protecting the government, he said on the Facebook page if he should go to court for his actions.

- RNZI/PNC