Black Immigrant Daily News

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Black Immigrant Daily News

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Black Immigrant Daily News

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Black Immigrant Daily News

There has been a further delay in the fraud and corruption case involving former Education Minister, Ruel Reid, and former Caribbean Maritime University (CMU) President, Professor Fritz Pinnock.

The matter was set for mention again on January 9, 2023 when it was called up in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court on Monday.

The men’s attorney, Hugh Wildman, confirmed the new date when he was contacted by Loop News.

With the mention date, Reid, Pinnock and Reid’s wife, Sharen; his daughter, Sharelle; and Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Councillor for the Brown’s Town Division in St Ann, Kim Brown-Lawrence, all had their bails extended until next year.

In July, the parish court had heard that the trial in the case had been put on hold following an order by the Supreme Court.

The hold in the case is due to a judicial review hearing that has been scheduled for the matter, for which a date has now been set for February 6 and February 7 of next year.

Reid and Pinnock were successful in their application to get a judicial review of a February 2021 ruling by Chief Parish Judge, Chester Crooks, that the cases against the men should go to trial.

The accused men are contending that Crooks should have removed himself from the hearing of the case in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court because he is a past student of Munro College in St Elizabeth, which Reid also attended.

Consequently, the accused are suggesting that Crooks should not have made any ruling in the case because of what they are contending was a conflict of interest on his part.

Accordingly, the men filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking leave to go to the Judicial Review Court to determine whether Crooks’ ruling should be quashed.

That decision was granted earlier last year.

Hugh Small, the attorney representing the Financial Investigations Division (FID), had made an application to allow the fraud trial to go ahead, despite the judicial review application being granted.

However, the Supreme Court, in March of this year, dismissed the FID’s attempt to have the trial proceed.

The FID, through its legal team, made an application to appeal that Supreme Court ruling, which was granted by another judge of the Supreme Court on Friday.

Reid, Pinnock and their co-accused were charged in October 2019 on allegations that millions of dollars were defrauded from both the Ministry of Education and the CMU.

Reid and Pinnock are facing the bulk of the charges. They are charged with breaches of the Corruption Prevention Act, conspiracy to defraud, misconduct in a public office at common law, and beaches of the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Sharen Reid and her daughter, as well as Brown-Lawrence, are all charged with possession of criminal property and conspiracy to defraud.

Wildman has long argued, even before Judge Crooks in December 2020, that the case against his clients should be dismissed because the FID Act does not empower the body to make arrests.

Wildman said the FID is purely an investigative body.

But Crooks disagreed with Wildman’s submissions.

Last November, the Court of Appeal refused both Reid and Pinnock leave to go to the United Kingdom Privy Council to seek to the have fraud charges against them dropped.

The accused were seeking to challenge the Financial Investigations (FID) Act in the Privy Council because the Supreme Court and later the Court of Appeal, ruled that both men should mount their legal challenges in the parish court.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Governor of the Turks and Caicos Islands Nigel John Dakin has addressed the House of Assembly in connection with the surge in gang violence in the territory.

Efforts are being made to end the ongoing crime situation, which, he said, is related to Jamaican gangs and serious transnational crime.

In a bid to get control of the situation, the governor stated firearms specialists from the UK arrived on Sunday’s British Airways flight and were at work Monday with the TCI’s Tactical Firearms Unit. More UK resources will follow during the coming week.

In addition, an Anti-Gangs Team of 24 detectives, funded by the UK, to an initial tune of ?3 million, is being recruited. Its forward elements arrive shortly.

Addressing the latest shooting incident, Governor Dakin said on Sunday night, following an attack in Long Bay against those who were allegedly associated with local drug dealers, and where an innocent visitor from the United States was killed, a Police Tactical Unit – on patrol and deployed with the express mission to arrest violent criminals – intercepted the assailants.

The police vehicle was hit by multiple strikes from high-velocity rounds.

“How an officer was not killed is remarkable. Our Tactical Unit returned fire and while it is still to be confirmed (and I may need to revise this), we believe one of the deceased – whose body was dropped in Dockyard by his fellow gang members – had been shot in the forehead as a result of our officers returning accurate fire under extraordinary pressure.”

Explaining the lead-up to the surge in shootings and gang violence in September, the governor said several months ago two local gangs lost their leadership.

One extremely violent local gang leader was shot dead by police while resisting arrest. The other, a Haitian gang leader, who the police had made four separate attempts to arrest in the shanty areas of ‘Romy Yard’ was killed — by one of his own — before he could be arrested.

The vacuum and confusion this created, allowed a predominantly Jamaican gang — with a relatively small footprint in the TCI — to reinforce from Jamaica. They had been seeking to kill one of their local rivals, following his attempt to steal from them.

Governor Dakin told Members of the House to remember the three days of shooting in Five Cays during April as this initial feud played out.

He said using military grade high-velocity weaponry, the vast majority of the murders in September have been targeted and linked to this enlarged and now emboldened gang trying to remove who they believe are the local drug and arms smuggling competition.

Those local criminals, already established in the TCI, are fighting back.

“I need to stress, not everyone killed has been involved in criminality, as one example. Some will recall I attended the funeral of Justin Cox-Beckles whose murder was utterly senseless. That murder is indicative of a wider issue: of the many eyewitnesses, none will give evidence. In this murder, CCTV was instrumental in generating an arrest.

“But it is also true that many who have been murdered have been linked to criminality and a spiral of reprisal killings, including to avenge some innocent as well as criminal victims, has been the result.

“Some who know that they are being targeted have left the Islands. Some of those who have been murdered were themselves murderers. Some having executed their crime, have slipped away through fast boat,” he said.

The TCI governor said, despite these challenges, there have been arrests but current legislation only allows the police to hold for 48 hours, and with witnesses and victims not prepared to talk — even those who have been shot — the policing challenge is significant.

He added that the police’s heavy presence in Five Cays, after the double murders, saw the gang relocate to Dockyard. Significant policing operations in that unregulated development saw the police go through the doors of more than 30 properties, where they came under fire from third parties.

Several days ago, there was an exchange of fire with one Jamaican, who dropped his weapon but escaped. On Saturday night a high-speed police pursuit resulted in three arrests and seized weaponry.

There have been calls for the resignation of Governor Dakin due to the current climate. The governor on Monday said he will not be resigning, as he stated:

I start by saying that some who have called for my resignation have no personal credibility to make that demand, and if it were just them, they would not warrant serious attention.

The governor said while some Members of the House have called for the commissioner’s resignation, he would not accept the commissioner’s resignation if offered because it would help the gangs and not the territory.

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