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In face of fraud allegations…Sir Ronald Sanders secures legal representation

Jan 07, 2012 News

In light of the recent fraud allegations leveled against Guyana-born Sir Ronald Sanders and other officials by the Antiguan authorities, Solicitors BCL Burton Copeland has issued a statement on Sanders’s behalf.
“We act for Sir Ronald Sanders and on his behalf strongly deplore the statement concerning him emanating from the authorities in Antigua.” The statement alludes to the fact that the language of the allegation and subsequent such allegations are both defamatory and wrong in describing legal process in matters such as this.
The statement asserted too that “Sir Ronald is willing to answer questions from the Antiguan Police that are properly put to him.”
When a call was made to Sir Ronald Sanders, he said that he writes a syndicated column, and has been doing so for the last two years. “I have been a member of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group. I am a member of the Friends of the Democratic Charter at the invitation of President Jimmy Carter, and I have a website on the Internet. I am not in hiding.  Anyone who can’t find me isn’t looking.”
A few days ago, the Baldwin Spencer administration announced that it had a special interest in a number of people. The primary persons in the police investigation which has been going on for eight years now are the Leader of the Opposition, former Prime Minister, Lester Bird, former Ambassador Ronald Sanders, and a member of Parliament and former Minister of the Government, Asot Michael. Sanders is a columnist with the Guyana-based Kaieteur News.
The other principal person in the investigation was a multi-billionaire owner of bank and oil refining and shipping companies, Bruce Rappaport, who is now deceased but whose estate settled the US$12m civil claim in a Miami Court.  Rappaport’s estate, however, refuted any wrongdoing.   The government is, therefore, owed no money. The government has already withdrawn a civil case against Bird and Michael over the same investigation from the Courts in Miami.  It has also stopped a Commission of Inquiry which it started and then had to abort.
Despite the furor, the Antiguan Government has merely said that it is conducting a criminal investigation into a matter of fraud. It also said that most of the people of significant interest or ‘individuals of interest’ have already assisted with investigations by presenting themselves to the police.
The investigation concerned the repayment of monies to Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Company Limited which had made a loan to the Bird Administration. The repayment would have amounted to US$121 million. The government is alleging that the fraud would have seen the siphoning off of some $61 million.
The repayment of the IHI loan to which this investigation refers was negotiated by Bruce Rappaport, as an accredited agent of the government with full Cabinet approval in 1996, some 15 years ago.

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