Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on Monday rejected suggestions that Australia helps financing an assassination attempt on Fijian interim Prime Minister Commander Voreqe Bainimarama, who led a coup in December last year and ousted the former government.
New Zealand has also rejected claims that it was helping finance the assassination attempt.
This came after Fiji's police on Sunday arrested a host of people, including New Zealand businessman Ballu Khan, for allegedly planning to kill Bainimarama.
Commodore Esala Teleni, Fiji's police chief, pointed the finger at "neighboring countries" who were financing non-governmental organizations and were implicated in the plot to kill Bainimarama, according to Australian Associated Press.
"It is completely false to suggest that the Australian government would consider assassinating Commodore Bainimarama and coup leaders in Fiji or that we would in any way wish to see any death occur in Fiji," Downer was quoted as saying in Adelaide, capital city of the state of South Australia.
"And it doesn't do any credit to Commodore Bainimarama's regime to be suggesting that countries like Australia and New Zealand want to go around assassinating them," he said.
"It's a completely absurd proposition," he added.
Source: Xinhua
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