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Ashcroft flies in 5 foreign lawyers!!

GeneralAshcroft flies in 5 foreign lawyers!!
The gloves are off! The opponents are the Government of Belize, in one corner, and the Michael Ashcroft empire, in the other corner. The battle begins this coming week, with separate rounds on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
 
In preparation for battle, we understand, the iron bird landed today with a high-powered legal team, one of them reportedly being Vincent Nelson, QC, a commercial contracts/banking finance barrister of London who has been defending the bank with the Universal Health Services case.
 
And while Mr. Ashcroft has deep enough pockets to contract the best attorneys money can buy, he is also notorious as a fierce fighter in the courts of law. He will certainly have his hands full in the coming week as his team takes on civil and criminal proceedings at both the Supreme and Magistrate’s Court levels.
 
Today we received reports that the billionaire businessman has armed himself with a high-powered team of five foreign attorneys, who will work alongside Barrow and Co, one of Belize’s biggest law firms.
 
Here’s what’s due to happen in the week ahead: On Monday, May 12, Ashcroft’s Belize Bank will be called in front of the Belize City Magistrate’s Court to answer to a string of criminal charges related to a series of dubious deposits of US dollar cash allegedly received from its affiliate company, the Belize Telecommunications Limited (now Belize Telemedia Limited) in 2004.
 
Prime Minister Dean Barrow, who ordered the FIU to investigate at the end of February, said that while he has received no formal report from the FIU on the matter, he knows that the bank has been charged by the FIU, and will be brought before the court on Monday.
 
Then on Tuesday morning, May 13, the hearing of the Association of Concerned Belizeans, Senator Godwin Hulse, and the trade unions is due to be called up in the courtroom of Justice Minnet Hafiz. In that case, the claimants are challenging the Universal Health Service agreements signed between the former administration and the bank.
 
On Wednesday, BTL is to appear before the Revenue Court in the Magistrate’s Court, following a summons from the Income Tax Department to collect $1.5 million in business tax arrears, estimated to total $6 million as of this month.
 
On Friday, BTL and the Government are to appear before the Chief Justice to hear the matter of an injunction the court granted last Friday to stop the bank from pursuing arbitration in London – a process initiated to stop the Government from pursuing civil action to have the bank return $20 million belonging to Belizean taxpayers.
 
Now back to the FIU case. Senior Government sources have confirmed to our newspaper that the charges have been drawn up. Government legal personnel in the Ministry of Finance and the Attorney General’s Ministry tell us that the Belize Bank and its chairman are accused of violating Section 13 of the Money Laundering (Prevention) Act, Chapter 104 of the Laws of Belize, for “failing to report a suspicious transaction” to the FIU, which is the supervisory financial authority.
 
However, when we tried to get official information from the FIU early this week, when rumors began to fly that the charges have been pinned, we were informed that the only person who could take our call is Mrs. Geraldine Davis, the FIU director, but we were told that it wasn’t possible to speak with her since she is out of the country and is not due to return to her desk until next week.
 
On a subsequent call, to address some money laundering questions not specific to the case, we were directed to Sergeant Bernard Reyes, who refused to respond to any of our questions. Operating out of the FIU, Reyes is the police officer who wrote up the charge sheets and had them witnessed by a Justice of the Peace.
 
Even when we pointed out to him that the information that could be deemed sensitive had already been published – in fact, the Guardian has on page 2 of this week’s issue what it says is a charge sheet dated Monday, May 5, 2008, for a US$35,297 cash transaction with BTL in January 2004, the officer insisted that he was not authorized to speak to us at all. Sgt. Reyes told us that we have to wait until Davis returns to office to have our questions addressed.
 
We found it extremely curious that up to today, Thursday, the Magistrate’s Court is saying to our newspaper that no charges have been filed with them on the Belize Bank-FIU matter, even though it has been widely reported that the FIU has pursued charges, which will have to be prosecuted in the Magistrate’s Court.
 
The allegations are against the bank, as well as its president, Philip Johnson, who, our newspaper notes, is still a member of the International Financial Services Commission which oversees Belize’s offshore sector, and which has a mandate to protect the reputation of Belize’s offshore industry.
 
Late February, Prime Minister Dean Barrow paid a visit to FIU director, Geraldine Davis, and requested her to investigate a string of dubious financial transactions, possibly dating back as far as 2002, which have led to several millions of dollars going missing and still unaccounted for from the public coffers, as well as from one of Belize’s most profitable companies – monies that are suspected to have been mingled with US dollars of questionable origin on the so-called parallel market.
 
In the transactions, former BTL chief Gaspar Aguilar, his in-law Hassan El Sayed, and Dion Zabaneh facilitated parallel market transactions that were not in line with financial regulations. In the transactions, BTL reported losing BZ$7.6 million.
 
We know from previous communications with the FIU that the office is also pursuing investigations with respect to the Moises Cal case, in which Mr. Cal is accused of taking US$1 million cash to Panama in a hidden suitcase compartment. Cal, a former diplomat and standard bearer for the Opposition PUP, was traveling on a diplomatic passport when the incident was reported 15 months ago.
 
For now, all eyes will be watching the legal battles with the Ashcroft empire. Yesterday evening, the two Belize City television stations reported that the Belize Bank has issued a press release defending itself against the FIU charges, but no such release has been sent to the news desks at Kremandala.
 
The charges against the Belize Bank are being brought three years after the alleged transactions, but the law allows up to five years up for such charges to be levied after the date of the transaction.
 
Why was it not done before? That’s the question many are asking, and one Government official pointed out that Mrs. Davis succeeds Keith Arnold, former Central Bank Governor, as the director of the FIU. Keith Arnold, we note, left the FIU in November 2005. In effect, Arnold, while wearing the hat of the FIU supervisor, was also intimately involved with BTL’s affairs. That is because even while Arnold was FIU director, he was also a director of BTL, and at times the company’s chairman, a post he continues to hold today.
 
In fact, it was Arnold who wrote Prime Minister Barrow in the weeks following the 2008 elections, asserting what his company claimed were special rights under a purported secret accommodation agreement they claim was given to them by the Said Musa administration.
 
At press time, we have yet to see a copy of that agreement, and Solicitor General Tanya Longsworth-Herwanger told us today that they are still studying the document to decide their way forward.
 
Our newspaper notes that under Section 27 of the Money Laundering (Prevention) Act (amended version) prosecuting such offence under the Act requires a filing by the DPP, or a filing by the supervising authority – in this case the FIU, which, we are informed, can bring charges independent of the DPP’s office.
 
We have no indication whether the DPP has been involved in this specific matter. We understand, however, that the current DPP, Lutchman Sooknandan, is on his way out, and that his deputy DPP, Cheryl-Lynn Branker-Taitt, will replace him.

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