Conman linked to Blair hurt in Fiji escape bid

Published on Thursday 26 October 2006 01:29

PETER Foster, the convicted Australian conman whose links with Cherie Blair caused the Prime Minister's wife severe embarrassment, was detained in Fiji after he tried to escape police by jumping off a bridge.

Foster injured himself while trying to evade police at the Pearl Resort at Navua, near the capital Suva. Video footage showed Foster being carried on a stretcher, his head wrapped in bandages.

The Colonial War Hospital in Suva confirmed that Foster was a patient at the facility but would give no other details. Police declined to comment.

Foster has served jail terms in Australia, Britain and the United States, mostly for fraud convictions. He is infamous for promoting fake slimming products, dating the 1980s model Samantha Fox and, more recently, being a "financial adviser" to the wife of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in a property transaction.

He became involved with Mrs Blair in 2002 through Carole Caplin, his then-girlfriend, who acted as a lifestyle adviser to the Prime Minister's wife.

Fiji police want to question Foster over claims posted on the internet that the New Zealand developer of a resort in Fiji's Yasawa islands was targeting homosexual clients and encouraging paedophilia, Fiji media reported.

Fiji's prime minister, Laisenia Qarase, this month demanded answers from his home affairs minister about how Foster had managed to get into the country despite being on the nation's list of people prohibited entry.

Fiji's Immigration Department last week terminated a work permit issued to Foster after it received his criminal history from police in Australia's Queensland state.

Foster made headlines in Fiji in 2001 when he provided financial backing for a political party in that year's general election. Foster was barred from entering the South Pacific nation in 2002.