No faith in police commissioner

FIJI – The former Fiji Police head of intelligence and investigations says he has no confidence in the country’s recently confirmed Police Commissioner, Sitiveni Qiliho.

The Fiji Times reports Henry Brown, who resigned in January after initially being sent on leave, is now in Australia.

Brown was sent on leave after Qiliho said he was under investigation, although last month the Director of Public Prosecutions ruled no criminal charges were being laid.

Brown said the accusations levelled against him were baseless and the decision by the DPP was because there was insufficient evidence.

The former high-ranking officer said what the DPP found was obvious from the beginning and allegations were plucked out of thin air.

Brown said to this day he is unaware as to who made allegations against him and he had seen no documents or statements about them.

He said he never agreed to be sent on leave, never got a chance to respond and the whole situation reeked of a witch-hunt for reasons only known to the Commissioner.

Brown said he had served Fiji faithfully and was a qualified executive member of the force with 31 years of experience, and should have been treated as such.

Brown says he had lost faith in the police leadership.

n response, Brig-Gen Qiliho said he had nothing to do with the correspondence between Brown and the Fiji Times.

He said there was nothing between him and Brown and would not comment further.

Qiliho, a former military commander, was appointed acting police commissioner after the sudden resignation of Ben Groeneweld last year.

Groenweld swiftly returned to South Africa, citing constant military interference in police work. Qiliho is the third senior military officer to run the police force since the 2006 coup.

- RNZI/PNC