Release: “The insinuations made by Prime Minister Gaston Browne about me, Harold Lovell, in relation to the Odebrecht Scandal prompts me to question the timing of his remarks and the release of his alleged dossier on the subject.
“The Odebrecht matter has been in the public domain for almost a decade now. In 2016, a Brazilian newspaper implicated the Antigua and Barbuda prime minister in a bribery scandal. According to the newspaper, the purpose of the bribe was to have him suppress information related to the operations of Meinl Bank.
“With Antigua and Barbuda at the centre of the controversy, with Meinl Bank alleged to be the locus of illicit worldwide payments, and with Browne, himself, implicated, why has he never conducted an investigation to clear his name or the country’s image – even after I called for a public inquiry?
“As prime minister and the minister of finance, he has been in the position – for more than 10 years – to clear the air on this matter, with anyone implicated for wrongdoing properly charged and prosecuted. Why has he not done so?
“I have said publicly, and have the documents to prove, that, as an attorney-at-law, I represented several persons in a civil matter that was referred to me, in December 2014, by Luis Franca, who had first worked here in a corporate capacity and then for the Government of Antigua and Barbuda.
“We met in Miami on December 19, 2014, and the only other person in that meeting was then Ambassador Casroy James. No one else!
“My six-month contract with the persons referred by Franca had nothing to do with Odebrecht or Meinl Bank or the receipt of any funds other than my invoice for legal services in connection with the liquidation of the Antigua Overseas Bank (AOB).
“On February 15, 2017, during a sitting of the Senate, I gave a full account of this client-attorney engagement. I also produced both my passports to prove that I was not even in the United States when the alleged “bribery meeting” took place in Miami in August 2015.
(Prime Minister Browne, on the other hand, revealed that he was very present in the city on August 5 that year.)
“At a press conference on March 22, 2017, I produced the documents to prove there had been no secret transactions: that I had entered into correspondence as counsel, using my own letterhead, with the AOB liquidators, the FSRC, and other lawyers. I had also appeared in open court in the course of the liquidation proceedings.
“All these disclosures were put in the public domain again in 2021 in response to spurious allegations of complicity by one Donna Chaia. She was forced to retract them and apologize in the media when I sued her and she admitted that her statements were untrue.
“I declare, again, that I had nothing to do with the Odebrecht Bribery Scandal. I held no meetings with the company’s officials. I solicited no funds from the company on behalf of myself or my Party and received none.
“The prime minister’s brand-new claim – that I had used his name to solicit funds from Odebrecht – is ludicrous. Would Casroy James and Luis Franca, both diplomats in his administration in 2015, have allowed me to misrepresent their boss in an effort to obtain funding for the Opposition Party?
“Gaston Browne’s latest story is a desperate attempt to smear my name and to distract the public from his own failures and controversies, particularly those swamping him now, with neither comfort nor succor from his colleagues.
“But while parliamentary privilege gives Browne legal cover to make these reckless statements without fear of a lawsuit, it does not give him moral immunity from the truth or political accountability.
“Using the cloak of Parliament to spread lies is a gross abuse of power and an insult to the intelligence of the Antiguan and Barbudan people.”
