The former Tongan Prime Minister has promised to resign from Parliament if he is found to have acted improperly over the issuing of passports to Chinese people as a political stoush over the scandal intensifies
Prime Minister 'Akilisi Pohiva has launched a crusade against people involved in the illegal sale of Tongan passports, which he claims have been used to smuggle drugs to New Zealand and elsewhere.
A police taskforce was established last year to investigate and is receiving help from New Zealand's Serious Fraud Office.
About a dozen lower-level Government officials have been arrested but Pohiva wants his predecessor, current Speaker of Parliament Lord Tu'ivakano, to be charged.
“I have seen the documents which the previous Prime Minister signed, the actual issuing of diplomatic passports to some Chinese here,” Pohiva told Stuff.
“To me, that was an illegal, unlawful action taken by the previous Government. I hope they will all be taken to court.”
Tu'ivakano told Stuff an email had circulated suggesting he'd taken $1m (US$463,000) in exchange for issuing passports but the allegations were an attempt by Pohiva to distract attention from his own problems.
“I'm sure [Pohiva] is used to investigating people he doesn't like. It's a political thing. I don't care about it. If I'm guilty then I'm sure I will quit my job but because I don't feel ... what have I done wrong?”
Tu'ivakano says he advised officials to process the passports as a matter of routine.
“I think it was two Chinese people ... they already got their passports, if they are expired they have a right to come back and ask for extensions.”
An audit of Tonga's immigration divisions, completed in 2013, found a Chinese couple, Sien Lee and his wife, had been issued seven diplomatic passports and 15 ordinary passports since 2003.
Local media reported the Tongan king told Tu'ivakano not to issue diplomatic passports to the couple. However, the queen mother ordered they be given to her friends.
Tu'ivakano then reportedly told staff at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in October 2012 to issue Lee a passport, or face the consequences.
In his audit report the then-Auditor General, Dr Pohiva Tu'i'onetoa, said the practice of handing out diplomatic passports was “unacceptable and puts the country's reputation at risk”.
Documents provided to Stuff by the Kelea newspaper, which Pohiva founded, reveal Tu'ivakano also signed off on five passports in October 2014, despite concerns about the validity of the Chinese applicants.
They show that the applicants claimed they were granted citizenship and issued passports in Tonga in the 1990s.
The Secretary for Foreign Affairs wrote to Tu'ivakano advising him there was no record of the applicants being granted citizenship and legal advice was yet to arrive.
Tu'ivakano responded: “Action all five passports as it is only renewal.” He said affidavits from former police officers attached to the applications provided proof the Chinese had been issued passports in the past.
Advice from Attorney General 'Aminiasi Kefu arrived the next day. He urged the passports not be issued because “there are real concerns that there is criminal activity behind these applications”.
Tu'ivakano appears to have advised the passports be issued anyway.
It's understood one of the police officers who provided affidavits has since been charged with perjury in connection with the passport inquiry.
Kefu told Stuff he was “disappointed” Tu'ivakano ignored his legal advice in 2014 but would not say if he was a person of interest to the passport inquiry.
Lawyer Laki Niu, who represents two Chinese men arrested in January as they tried to board a flight from Tonga to New Zealand, said they were angry at the way they'd been treated.
It is alleged that Shiwei Hu and Guangchang Xiao knew their passports were forged, but Niu said they'd been promised passports in exchange for their business.
They'd heard Tu'ivakano promoting Tonga in China as a good place to invest, so put about $300,000 (US$139,000) into a waterfront property in Nuku'alofa, Niu said, adding that Tu'ivakano instructed immigration officials to issue them passports.
“Previously they were treated as VIPs… and then they were stopped and thrown in jail.
“They were only doing what they were advised by the Prime Minister and the officials of Government.”
Pohiva was critical of Kefu for not laying charges sooner.
“I have a real problem with him. The position of Attorney General is central to the ... efficient running of the Government, but the problem is that [he] is not accountable to me, he's accountable to the Privy Council.”
Kefu said it was up to police to bring charges and then his office reviewed them. “So far, Tonga police has charged persons who they have assessed to have committed a criminal offence.”