NOTE: The following was published today under the above headline by Caribbean News Now – the most widely read newspaper in the Caribbean.
By Caribbean News Now contributor
ST JOHN’S, Antigua — Local legal luminary Sir Gerald Watt QC, Washington-based attorney Anthony Hall and the opposition Antigua Labour Party have all joined former High Commissioner Sir Ronald Sanders in condemning a statement issued by the Antigua and Barbuda police last week that Sanders was a person of interest in a multi-million-dollar fraud investigation.
Speaking on Sunday, Watt said the police acted improperly and should immediately publish an apology before the situation escalates.
“Don’t forget long after if Sir Ronald Sanders is exonerated by a court, his position, not only in Antigua but in the region and internationally, if he wins
it’s going to be horrendous damages and if he does, his reputation has been irreparably sullied and that’s not fair,” he said.
In an article published today, Anthony Hall agrees with Watt and calls the claim by the Antigua police “preposterous and irresponsible.”
“I fear however that an apology, no matter how appropriately abject, cannot possibly compensate for the damage this declaration has done to Sir Ron’s reputation,” he adds.
Hall goes on to suggest that the police might have been acting more infurtherance of a political conspiracy than a criminal investigation.
The ALP agrees, describing the actions by the Antigua police as “political harassment”.
“It is now clear to members of the Central Executive of the Antigua Labour Party that this is no police investigation; it is a politically-controlled event on which millions of dollars of tax payers’ money have been spent on an abandoned Commission of Inquiry, an abandoned civil suit in Miami, the mock trial in 2009, the dormant civil suits in Antigua, a multi-million dollar report done five years ago by a forensic auditor, and now a special constable. This is an outrageous and indecent abuse of power,” the opposition party said in a statement on Sunday.
Last week, Sanders, the High Commissioner to Britain under the ALP-led government of former prime minister Lester Bird, called the statement by the Antigua police “both defamatory and wrong,” indicating his intention to seek legal remedies.
In a statement issued on Friday, the London law firm BCL Burton Copeland said, “We act for Sir Ronald Sanders and on his behalf strongly deplore the statement concerning him emanating from the authorities in Antigua. The language of the statement and subsequent statements are both defamatory and wrong in describing legal process in matters such as this.”
Earlier last week, the Antigua police claimed that “All efforts to privately contact Sir Ronald Sanders have proven futile.”
However, as publishers of a weekly column by Sanders, no attempt was made at any time by the Antigua authorities or anyone else to engage our assistance in contracting him.
“To say that he could not be reached is absurd since, as a regional commentator, [his] website and means of contact appears weekly throughout the
Caribbean. Further he appears regularly on television and the radio and he is active on the international stage,” Sanders’ attorneys said on Friday.
“Sir Ronald is willing to answer questions from the Antigua police that are properly put to him,” the statement concluded.
The investigation in question reportedly concerns a US$29.7 million loan from Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Company (IHI Japan) to the Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA.)