ATTORNEYS representing Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller and three People’s National Party (PNP) officials in the long-standing Trafigura matter yesterday filed an appeal seeking to halt the proceedings after High Court Judge Justice Lennox Campbell ordered that subpoenas be issued for them.
Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn, QC, yesterday explained that the subpoenas were issued after Simspon Miller, Robert Pickersgill, Phillip Paulwell, Colin Campbell, and businessman Norton Hinds failed to appear in court.
The witnesses were required to give sworn testimony regarding the investigation by the Netherlands Government into the payment, in September 2006, of $31 million to an account bearing the name CCOC to which certain members of the PNP were signatories.
The Trafigura scandal rocked the then governing PNP after it emerged that the party accepted the money from the Dutch firm which, at the time, had an oil-lifting agreement with Jamaica.
The PNP had said the money was a donation, but Trafigura said it was payment on a commercial transaction. The party has since said the money was returned.
