By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Fiji's president assumed control Friday and fired the judges who a day earlier had declared the military government illegal, deepening the troubled South Pacific country's political turmoil.
President Ratu Josefa Iloilo announced in a nationally broadcast radio address that he had abolished the constitution, assumed all governing power and revoked all judicial appointments.
"I hereby confirm I have abrogated the 1997 constitution and appointed myself as head of state in the new order," Iloilo said in the address.
The move came one day after the country's second-highest court ruled that armed forces chief Commodore Frank Bainimarama's government that took power after a 2006 coup was illegal, effectively creating a power vacuum.