SUVA: Fiji’s military leader yesterday intensified his crackdown against perceived enemies of his regime, throwing out an Australian academic days after expelling the top envoys from New Zealand and Australia.

The expulsion of Australian National University’s Fiji expert Brij Lal also came as a close ally of self-appointed prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama was named the country’s president, a largely ceremonial role.

Lal was arrested on Wednesday at his home in Suva after giving a number of media interviews on Fiji’s political situation as relations with Wellington and Canberra reached a new low.

“I was in a cell for an hour and interrogated and told to leave the country within 24 hours or else,” Lal told Australia’s ABC Radio late on Wednesday.

A regular visitor to Fiji, Lal said it was the first time he had been arrested by the military, which ousted the elected government in a December 2006 coup and was involved in three other coups in the past two decades.

Meanwhile, Fiji’s acting president Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, a former army commander credited with guiding Bainimarama through his military career, was sworn in as head of state yesterday.

Nailatikau was appointed acting president after Ratu Josefa Iloilo retired at the end of July.

Nailatikau was named as vice president in April.