One of the king’s nobles, Lord Fusitu’a, has died, local news media reported.
The nobility member for Niuafo’ou’s death comes after he was airlifted into Auckland’s Middlemore hospital in 2019.
According to various sources, the noble had been put on dialysis shortly after he arrived in Auckland.
While the 51-year-old noble was a Member of Parliament he was one of the key figures from opposition bench who was instrumental in rejecting the then government’s six new bills which were pending in Parliament in 2019.
The bills include giving the government control over key judicial and police appointments, rather than the King.
Tonga’s former Prime Minister, ‘Akilisi Pohiva, said at the time his government’s efforts to control the appointments of the attorney general and the police commissioner are in line with a 2014 report by a British constitutional consultant, Peter Pursglove.
The Pursglove Report was endorsed in 2014 by the Tu’ivakano government but never implemented.
Lord Fusitu’a divorced from his wife Hon. Lupepau’u Tuita in 2008. They had a daughter.