By Rickey Singh
– in Barbados
THE very highly controversial move last week by the Antigua and Barbuda Police Force, in cooperation with the government of Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, to go public with a statement for Sir Ronald Sanders to voluntarily present himself for questioning as “a person of interest” in an alleged fraud case, has been condemned by two senior counsels as well as a former Police Commissioner  as “gross abuse of power” and violation of an individual’s constitutional right to due process. For former Commissioner of the Antigua and Barbuda Police Force, Rawlston Pompey, senior counsel and former Attorney General of the twin-island state, Sir Gerald Watt, and also the regionally well known senior counsel of Dominica, Anthony Astaphan, “there is no precedent” for  such an action in the Caribbean against someone who is neither a fugitive from justice nor facing any criminal charges.
The perplexing move is viewed as being implicitly designed to publicly convey the wrong impression that Sanders (a former long-serving diplomat of Antigua and Barbuda and currently regular contributor for various regional media enterprises), is a “wanted person”.
For his part, Sanders has made clear that he has “never been personally contacted by either the police or the Spencer administration” to cooperate as a “person of interest” in the matter which he read about in media reports and also as posted on the Antigua government’s official website.
More intriguingly, the police statement seeking Sanders as “a person of interest” was to mysteriously disappear this past weekend from the government’s website as a result of legal advice it is reported to have received on apparent “political/police complicity” on unproven allegations. Sanders, who lives in Barbados and also has a home in England, said he was “ready to be questioned by the Antigua and Barbuda police at any time…”
This sensational development has surfaced at a period when Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer’s administration is known to be mired in deep economic woes and in the process of carrying out a cabinet reshuffle amid speculations of a likely snap general election.

THE BACKGROUND
The allegations of complicity in a fraudulent engagement, in connection with which Sanders is being sought as a “person of interest”, also include former Prime Minister Lester Bird, and ex-cabinet colleague, Asot Michael (both currently Members of Parliament), all of which have been strongly denied by them.
The probe concerns an original US$29.07 million loan to the state some 15 years ago for the Antigua Public Utilities (APU), repayable with interest, from the Japanese enterprise Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Company (IHI). The venture also involved a then Swiss billionaire investor, Bruce Rappaport, now dead, but whose estate has honoured claimed outstanding indebtedness.
Within a year after his United Progressive Party (UPP) first came to power in March 2004, the Spencer administration had initiated investigation into claims of corruption in the debt repayment transaction involving the HHI multi-million agreement and based, it said, on the report of a forensic investigator, Robert Lindquist. That report was submitted about five years ago.
Then followed a sequence of initiatives by the government, only to be subsequently abandoned. These included, first, civil proceedings brought against Lester Bird and Asot Michael in a court in Miami that was later withdrawn, and also an abandoned Commission of Inquiry in 2009 into the same allegations of fraud in the HHI venture.
In a brief media statement earlier this week, the UK-based law firm, BCL Burton Copeland, acting on behalf of Sanders said:
“We strongly deplore the statement concerning him emanating from the authorities in Antigua. To say that he could not be reached is absurd since, as a regional commentator, his website and means of contact appears weekly throughout the Caribbean..” 
His lawyers further stated that “Sir Ronald is willing to answer questions from the Antigua police that are properly put to him”.
So far as Sir Gerald Watt, the former Antigua and Barbuda Attorney General and ex-chairman of the country’s electoral commission is concerned, the Antigua police have handled this case “very badly and should now apologise to Sir Ronald…To declare someone as ‘a person of interest’, he said, “is a euphemism for suggesting that the individual is involved in a criminal matter…”