Antigua DPP demands fraud case be thrown out

Lawyers representing Antigua’s Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Anthony Armstrong, who is facing fraud charges in relation to three land transactions, are threatening to take the issue before the Constitutional Court in a bid to have the criminal charges thrown out.

The Jamaican lawyer was arrested on his arrival on Saturday and charged with conspiracy to defraud and fraudulent conversion.

Allegations are that the complainant’s signature was forged and witnessed by the accused on three different instruments of transfer for properties owned by the complainant in St Ann and St Andrew.

The three properties in question were reportedly secretly sold while the complainant was in prison overseas in 2004.

The complainant had also reported the matter to the General Legal Council (GLC), whose Disciplinary Committee in February found Armstrong guilty of professional misconduct for signing a document for a client who was not present.

But attorney-at-law Hugh Wildman, one of three lawyers representing the accused, argued in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court on Monday that the charges amount to an abuse of process as the incident from which the charges stemmed took place 20 years ago and that his client was deprived of a proper hearing then.

Noting that the Privy Council, in one of its decisions, had declared that it’s an abuse of process to bring a case against a defendant after four years, Wildman said: “Now to come with a case some 20 years after, it is a triple, quadruple abuse of process.”

Consequently, he said: “So we are asking this court, which is a course we will be taking at some stage, that this matter be thrown out.

“In fact, I am minded to go to the Constitutional Court to declare that the charges should be stayed as an abuse of process and in light of the guidance for the Privy Council,” he added.

Furthermore, said he found the entire matter to be disturbing as his client has already gone through a full-blown hearing at the GLC and was acquitted of the same charges.

Wildman acknowledged that his client had admitted to having signed certain documents. However, he said Armstrong was acting on the instruction of the complainant, who was his client.

Nonetheless, he said the GLC found that the complainant was a self-confessed drug trafficker.

“Now we are very disturbed that a rogue could come and do this to destroy the credibility of a well-respected man who served at the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in Jamaica and is now performing sterling duty as the director of public prosecutions in Antigua, and we think that these charges have been concocted to destroy him and his reputation,” Wildman said.

Wildman also said that his client was charged him without the guidance of the Jamaican DPP being sought.

Expressing confidence that his client will be vindicated, Wildman asked Parish Judge Venice Blackstock Murray to order the return of Armstrong’s passport as he has responsibilities in Antigua and needs to travel.

While pointing out that his client is not a flight risk, Wildman said his client had returned to the island to facilitate the investigation.

Wildman said that he believed that the police wanted Armstrong to come in for a question-and-answer session but was shocked when they arrested him.

The investigating officer objected to the return of Armstrong’s passport, arguing that the police had asked Armstrong to come in from August but he had refused. As a result, she said Red Notice Alert was sent to Antigua for the accused to be returned to Jamaica, but the notice was removed.

The judge, however, indicated that she will rule on the matter on Thursday. Armstrong’s $500,000 station bail was extended.

Attorney-at-law Linda Wright and Althea Grant are also representing Armstrong.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com