The Director of Public Prosecution has appealed the judge’s decision to strike out the bus conversion matter, against three former United Progressive Party (UPP) Ministers, on several grounds including that Judge Colin Williams erred in law.
The appeal was filed on December 7 weeks after the trial against Harold Lovell, Wilmoth Daniel and Dr Jacqui Quinn ended.
They were accused of corruption, embezzlement and conversion of three Daewood buses which the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) government alleged was a gift to the government of Antigua and Barbuda and which they used for their personal use.
No case submissions made by attorneys representing all three accused were upheld.
The judge ruled that the prosecution did not offer enough evidence to prove that the buses were converted from ownership of government to the ministers or how they were used improperly.
The three accused have maintained that this was nothing more than a political witch-hunt by the ABLP administration.
Meanwhile, the Leadership and Executive of the United Progressive Party has condemned what is the latest attempt by the Gaston Browne Administration to continue the persecution of the party’s Political Leader Harold Lovell and his former deputies, Dr. Jacqui Quinn and Willmoth Daniel.
In a statement, the party says the Prime Minister’s unwillingness to accept the verdict of two courts that there is no case to answer, has become a personal vendetta that is aimed at fulfilling his infamous threat: to “use the resources of the State to bankrupt” those who stand or speak in opposition to him.
“It is morally distasteful that Browne would continue to spend the taxpayers’ money in this crassly political exercise”, the party added.
The statement went further noting that it is also pitiful that the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions which is meant to be an independent agency could have responded so slavishly to the Prime Minister’s un-subtle directive.
