Former Fiji PM Bainimarama handed one-year prison sentence

Department of Public Prosecution lawyer Laisani Tabuakoro arrives to attend the former Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama case in court. [AFP]

Former Fiji prime minister Frank Bainimarama was sentenced Thursday to one year in prison for perverting the course of justice, with a judge finding he used his political clout to shut down a police investigation.

Bainimarama was sentenced at Fiji's High Court in the capital Suva, after being found guilty this year of quashing a police probe into alleged corruption at a Fijian university.

The former military commander seized power in a bloodless coup in 2006 and remains a popular figure in the South Pacific nation.

A crowd of supporters sang outside the court as the sentence was handed down before Bainimarama was handcuffed and led away into a waiting police truck.

Bainimarama's wife Maria sobbed throughout acting Chief Justice Salesi Temo's sentencing remarks.

A lower court magistrate ruled in March that Bainimarama's ailing health -- he underwent urgent heart surgery in 2022 -- meant the 70-year-old should not be sent to prison.

But Temo upended this decision, saying it "completely ignored" the severity of Bainimarama's actions.

The judge lashed former naval commodore Bainimarama for trashing his oaths of office.

He did, however, reduce Bainimarama's sentence on the strength of character references provided by two former Fijian presidents.