By Maggie Tait of NZPA

Wellington, Nov 5 NZPA - New Zealand Deputy High Commissioner to Fiji Todd Cleaver flies home this evening.

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said Mr Cleaver would arrive in Auckland late this evening and be escorted through the airport. He would not be speaking to media today.

The high commission is now closed and the ministry is warning New Zealanders there is some risk to their safety in Fiji.

Interim head of Fiji's government Commodore Voreqe (Frank) Bainimarama, who took power in a December 2006 coup, on Tuesday ordered Mr Cleaver and Australia's High Commissioner James Bartley to leave the country.

Mr Cleaver is the third New Zealand diplomat kicked out by the regime in two years.

In return the New Zealand Government yesterday ordered Fiji's acting head of mission in New Zealand, Kuliniasi Seru Savou, to leave.

The latest flashpoint in poor relations with Fiji is over the inclusion of judges in a travel ban imposed on members of the regime.

The extended ban has been in place since April when Cdre Bainimarama abrogated the constitution, sacked the judiciary, and imposed measures curbing free speech as well as setting elections back to September 2014.

New Zealand and Australia say judges are now hand-picked by the regime and therefore are treated as part of it.

Fiji says the judges are independent.

Australia has informed Fiji that six Sri Lankan judges would not be allowed to transit through that country after they were appointed.

Fiji also highlighted difficulties it said one of its judges, Anjala (crct) Wati, had in getting a visa so her son could get medical treatment in New Zealand.

However Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully says the pair were given a compassionate exemption in a timely manner and the boy, Kartik, was being treated at Starship Hospital for a detached retina.

(expect lead soon with further from MFAT)

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