PRIME Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama will stick by his men, police officers or anyone else who may be named in investigations in the brutal beating of two men shown in an online video.
Commodore Bainimarama told Legend FM that while people were speculating on who all were involved in the footage of two people beaten up by a group of men and were saying excessive force was used, he stressed people should know that security personnel had worked hard to protect the citizens of Fiji from hardened criminals.
"No one has been identified but people keep referring to it as prisoners who escaped from Naboro last year," he told the radio station yesterday.
"If you can remember that story, they broke into the bank and terrorised the people of Fiji for two whole weeks.
"In that two weeks, I remember I was very worried about the security of the people of Fiji."
Commodore Bainimarama said the police were going to conduct their own investigation.
"These people should not forget what these guys did when they broke out of prison in those two weeks," he told Legend FM.
"A lot of people too don't seem to understand what came out of the interrogation that happened during that time.
"I'm not tying that interrogation to the video but a lot of things were discovered during the interrogation of the Naboro prisoners that broke away from prison.
"One of them ... had been taught how to react during interrogation, what to say, how to plead with those people that had arrested them.
"During the arrest of those Naboro prisoners last year, we discovered that whilst they were still under arrest, people from inside the prison were still calling them on their phones."
Commodore Bainimarama told Legend FM that investigations would be held but as the head of the government and the person responsible for the security of the nation, he stood by the security personnel.
"At the end of the day, I will stick by my men, by the police officers or anyone else that might be named in this investigation. We cannot discard them just because they've done their duty in looking after the security of this nation and making sure we sleep peacefully at night."