As the Lal reports gained momentum, the question on the nation’s lips was increasingly: Who is the minister? In fact, however, the identity was one of Fiji’s worst-kept secrets, the name easily available on any number of internet blogs and freely passed by word of mouth. Finally, in The Fiji Times of 22 February, Chaudhry challenged the media to name the minister at the centre of the furore. He didn’t have long to wait – the following day the Times page one splash read: ‘It’s Chaudhry’. The next day, 24 February, the Fiji Sun followed with another Lal exclusive: ‘Now for the REAL story – how Chaudhry got his millions’, a detailed account of Mr Chaudhry’s no-longer-secret bank accounts, with detailed documentation of deposits and withdrawals. The fact that one of the deposits – AU$500,000 – was channeled through the Indian Consulate in Sydney attracted particular attention. The government of India has yet to explain it.

The following day, 25 February, while driving home from work at about 8pm, I received a call on my cell phone from an acquaintance who informed me that Mr Chaudhry’s son, Rajendra, had been telling people that I would be out of the country by the following Wednesday. My partner and I were discussing this when two men arrived at our house claiming to be from the department of immigration. One of them probably was. Dressed in a departmental uniform, he was affable, said ‘bula’, shook my hand and advised that he was sorry to arrive so late but had been to our previous address and had only just managed to locate me. He asked for my passport, explaining there was a minor anomaly to be cleared up. Foolishly, perhaps, I gave it to him. He then asked to see my partner’s passport as well as that of our 13-year-old daughter. He returned theirs but not mine, all the while insisting that we talk not in the house but under the light in the driveway. As he slipped my passport into a manila folder he withdrew from the folder a green government form signed by the permanent secretary for immigration; it gave me seven days in which to leave the country. The departmental representative asked me to go with him to his office to ‘arrange the formalities’, but when he could not or would not say what these formalities might be I declined to go, pointing out that the order gave me seven days to leave and that I intended to comply with it. On his repeated insistence that I accompany him, I began to call the company lawyer.

Almost immediately, four or five people – obviously military but unarmed and out of uniform – burst into the compound calling ‘let’s go now’, ‘hurry up’, ‘get in the vehicle’ and so forth. One even brought my shoes from the porch. ‘Don’t waste our time’, shouted the driver of the waiting twin-cab ‘just get in the vehicle’. They told my wife and the company lawyer that they were taking me to their office in Suva. So, crammed into the rear of the twin-cab between two burly soldiers, I was whisked off into the night. It soon became plain that the destination was not Suva but Nadi, the site of the international airport. My mobile phone was taken from me a minute or so into the journey and, on arriving in Nadi, I was held in isolation at a house in Cawa Street until the next morning, when a different group of four soldiers took me to the airport. The Fiji Sun has been able to identify the Suva-based army captain who escorted me to Air Pacific flight FJ911 bound for Sydney. I was wearing the clothes I had been wearing when abducted the night before. I had next to no money with me.

Meanwhile, the Fiji Sun lawyer, some good friends and the Australian High Commission had been active. High Commissioner James Batley’s repeated demands for consular access to me was met with a wall of silence from officials, all of whom denied knowledge of my whereabouts. Our lawyer, sensing what was going on, had arranged for an early morning court sitting, at which he was granted an injunction preventing the state from removing me from the country. It was ignored.

About an hour from Sydney, my passport was returned to me by one of the extremely sympathetic and seemingly ashamed cabin crew, along with the green form I had seen the night before. The words ‘seven days’ were by now blacked out. I was met at Sydney airport by a horde of TV, radio and print journalists – which confirmed my view that the Fiji military had once again shot itself in the foot as far as public and international relations were concerned.

The familiar denials followed. This was an exercise carried out solely by the immigration department with no military involvement whatsoever, it was alleged: The chief executive officer of the Fiji Sun had been deported because he was a threat to national security based on ‘credible’ evidence. This evidence has never been produced, although there was a hint that an illegally hacked email exchange between myself and Lal proved the case. The mail in question had been obtained by a disgruntled former employee who appears to have sold it to a third party. It also reached Nikhil Singh in Sydney, an ex-Fiji TV reporter and now FLP mouthpiece employed by the journalists’ trade union, which, as part of its mission statement, is sworn to uphold media freedom. Singh emailed the material to the Fiji and the regional media, most representatives of which regarded it as a typical exchange between a reporter and publisher and ignored it as irrelevant. The notable exceptions were Fiji TV and the government radio station.

I have still not been told why I was abducted from my home and deported, though it was frequently stated that it was in no way connected with the Fiji Sun’s coverage of the Chaudhry tax saga. At this time I was receiving a host of calls and emails. Referring to the denials, one caller paraphrased William Shakespeare: ‘Methinks they dost protest too much’.

Again curiously, some ten days after my removal, Mr Chaudhry gave an interview to the government radio station, purporting to ‘clear the air on Russell Hunter’. The interview included the following statements by Mr Chaudhry:

This is revealing. When the People’s Coalition government had declined to renew my work permit in 2000, then Prime Minister Chaudhry had told all who inquired (including the managing director of my then employer, The Fiji Times) that he was not dealing with my case and had no knowledge of it. He referred all inquiries to his Attorney-General. It has taken him eight years to reveal the truth – that it was entirely his decision. Readers can decide who has a grudge. They can also decide whether the coverage of Chaudhry’s tax affairs had ‘nothing to do’ with my treatment.

So, depending on who anyone chooses to believe, I was abducted from my home in the dead of night by a gang of thugs for not training a replacement, or I was abducted from my home in the dead of night by a gang of thugs for being some unspecified security risk. I have still not been told why I received such treatment and I no longer expect to be told.

And Chaudhry would certainly be aware that while at The Fiji Times and again at the Fiji Sun I had designed and implemented training programs for cadets, reporters, sub-editors and editors. He would also be aware that when I was appointed publisher and CEO of the Fiji Sun (a non-editorial position) my former understudy at The Fiji Times replaced me as editor-in-chief and continues to hold that position. He would be equally aware that the government is the nation’s biggest employer of expatriate personnel and that at least one consultant in his very own FIRCA has been in place for more than 30 years without being required or even invited to train a local replacement.

In a poignant postscript to my abrupt departure from Fiji, some friends, acquaintances, supporters and the merely curious gathered for a farewell function. It was a very emotional occasion, during which a friend of the senior civil servant who had cooperated in my deportation order told my wife that the senior civil servant in question prayed daily for forgiveness and that he also sought forgiveness from us. I choose not to record my wife’s answer. However, if he reads this, as I imagine he will, he will know that I have forgiven him. Life’s too short to hold grudges, Mr Chaudhry.

A week after the Times publication of the tax story, Chaudhry issued a defamation writ claiming $1 billion in damages. The Fiji Sun expected a similar claim. Both have announced their intention to defend these actions.

However, some three months on no writ had been received by the Sun, and the Times case had not progressed. And with the forced departure of Times publisher, Evan Hannah, on May 1, 2008, it seems a reasonable bet that there is no intention on the part of Chaudhry to pursue the case.

Mr Hannah was taken from his home, by the same group that abducted me, on the eve of World Press Freedom day – and a day after the interim Prime Minister had declared that his government supported media freedom. It is clear that it supports media freedom only within the ambit of government control and that it intends to implement the Anthony report, discredited as it is.

And, finally, the senior civil servant whom I have forgiven played exactly the same role in the deportation of Hannah. Mr Hannah is not a vindictive person and will in all likelihood offer forgiveness if asked. But from how many others will this man seek forgiveness?