Yesterday, it was announced that the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has dropped the charges it had filed against Belize Bank president, Philip Johnson.
It seems to observers to be a curious turn of events, after the Magistrate who was handling the case gave an adjournment last week, specifically to ensure that Johnson was served a summons to appear in court as a co-defendant with the Belize Bank on a long list of money laundering-related charges.
So we asked the question everyone wants an answer to: tell us WHY? But neither the FIU nor its attorney is talking.
On Wednesday afternoon Senior Counsel Bernard Q. Pitts, former law partner of Attorney General Wilfred Elrington, told the court that the FIU would no longer be including Johnson – also BB Holdings’ president of financial services since 1995 – as a defendant. He offered no explanation then, and the magistrate did not request one. Pitts also asked the court to amend seven of the charges because of errors in the wording he claimed to be minor.
When Pitts emerged from the courtroom, we asked him to kindly explain to us why the charges had been dropped against Johnson. His reply then was that he could not talk about it.
So today we contacted FIU director, Mrs. Geraldine Davis, who directed us back to Pitts, indicating to us that she prefers not to discuss the matter. She told us that we should contact Pitts and get the explanation from him.
So we called for the attorney at the Pitts and Elrington law firm. When we eventually got to speak with Pitts, he still refused to explain, saying to us that he is “professional” and he will not disclose the reason because of confidentiality. He told us that the matter is before the court and he does not want to get into the details.
But after we asserted the fact that the point on which we sought clarification was not before the court, because the charges against Johnson had been withdrawn, he told us: “I am not prepared to make any further statement than that.”
We take issue with the manner in which the press, and by extension the public, is being denied an explanation by the parties immediately involved with the case, because Prime Minister Dean Barrow had promised a clean administration and complete openness with the press.
It is of note that the prosecution of the Belize Bank for a long list of money laundering-related charges by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has been running into a series of snags since the FIU had lodged 79 charges against the bank and its president, Philip Johnson, whom the FIU has accused of “failing to report suspicious transactions.”
Notably, Johnson did not appear in court last Monday, when Magistrate Sharon Frazer had expected him to, pursuant to a summons, and his attorney, Eamon Courtenay, told the court that his client had not appeared because he had been issued not with a defendant summons, but with a witness summons.
As a result, the judge ordered an adjournment until Friday to have the summons rectified, but to the magistrate’s surprise, no one showed up in court when that date came – neither the prosecution nor the defendants.
If you thought that was strange, it will strike you as even more strange that when the court convened today, Johnson, again, did not appear. Instead, the Belize Bank was represented by Belizean, Martin Marshalleck, the bank’s manager.
And it was evident that the summons was still not issued to Johnson for him to appear as defendant – which was the whole reason why the judge had given the adjournment in the first place.
In another turn of events in court today, Pitts, a private attorney appointed now as the FIU’s special prosecutor, showed up in place of Merlene Moody, prosecutor from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution. Pitts’ appearance means that the prosecution has shifted from outside the domain of the DPP’s office, back to the FIU.
Lutchman Sooknandan, the man who was the DPP at the time when the FIU first wrote up the charges, is no longer in that seat, and there is yet to be an official appointment of someone to replace him.
Here is where things get interesting, because when attorney for the Belize Bank, Eamon Courtenay, SC, appeared in court this afternoon, he argued before the magistrate that the fact that Sooknandan, the then DPP, was not even consulted on the case, and the fact that he did not issue a written directive, affects how the case will proceed.
Courtenay argued that even though the Money Laundering (Prevention) Act (under which the case is being brought) gives the FIU prosecutorial powers, since there is no DPP directive and no prosecution by the DPP’s office, then the matter cannot be tried as an indictable matter, and so no plea should be sought from the defendants.
If they want to try the matter as an indictable offence, said Courtenay, the DPP has to be involved and no plea should be taken. (That also raises the question of whether the case should be passed up to the Supreme Court for hearing.)
Courtenay argued before Magistrate Frazer that unless the DPP says otherwise, the matter should proceed summarily [which would allow his clients to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty before the Magistrate]. We underscore, again, that there is no formal replacement for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
Considering Courtenay’s arguments to the court, Pitts asked for a one-month adjournment for the matter to be sorted out. Magistrate Frazer set a date of June 18 to have the matter brought back.
This would appear to be enough of a recess to allow the prosecution to get its act together, and perhaps for there to be a formal appointment of a new DPP, as well as for proper consultations to take place with the appropriate parties.
We don’t know whether it has anything to do with the fact that this is a new type of prosecution for our courts, but the handling of the case has been riddled with “strange happenings” from the get go. Rumors of the 79 charges came when FIU director, Geraldine Davis, was reportedly out of the country, and the media could not get any official report from the FIU, as hard as it tried.
Checks made by affiliate news media, Amandala and KREM, with the Magistrate’s Court revealed that even as one of the charge sheets had been published in the ruling party newspaper, nothing had been filed with the Magistrate’s court.
Our newspaper was only able to get official confirmation on the charges by contacting Prime Minister Dean Barrow, because no one at the FIU was talking to us about the details. We also could not get to the Director of Public Prosecution, who, we were told, was on his way out, and due to be replaced by his deputy.
When Mrs. Davis returned the following Monday after the news broke, the matter was taken before Magistrate Frazer, but since then, there has been no forward movement in the case.
The Belize Bank-Money Laundering (Prevention) Act case is one of major public importance, but, assuming that it comes to full hearing, it could also prove to be a milestone case for Belize. Bankers of such high social status are not normally dragged before the court, and this is, in fact, the first time such a case is being heard in our territory.
The case attracts a great deal of interest for the mere fact that the Belize Bank is the country’s wealthiest financial institution within our borders, controlled by British billionaire Michael Ashcroft.
(The jankunu is a flamboyant, frivolous and fast Garifuna dance, of a satirical nature, in which dancers create entertainment by mimicking and mocking white slave masters. Dancers hide their identities by wearing masks bearing European features. One must be super-fit to perform well.)