AG Denies Collusion:
By Tameka Lundy -
Nassau, Bahamas:

Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson yesterday strenuously denied any government collusion in the arrests of five Bahamian baggage handlers in the United States operating from the Lynden Pindling International Airport on alleged drug trafficking offences.

Minister Maynard-Gibson was the first Cabinet Minister to discuss the situation extensively and refute the claims of government complicity on the heels of the arrests in late December. She did so while appearing as a guest on the Love 97 talk show "Issues of The Day" with host Wendall Jones.

Additionally, she said the government did not know of the arrests until after they had taken place.

"There is not one scintilla of evidence and it is strongly refuted that the Government of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas was in any way complicit in any illegal activity, any collusion, any luring, any entrapment," she said.

"It simply never happened. Those are the facts."

The men were arrested following a joint undercover operation involving the Royal Bahamas Police Force and U.S. investigators. They had flown to the U.S. for a routine training course. The attorney general confirmed that there are unsealed drug related indictments against them.

She also explained that if an offence is committed in any country where there is no statute of limitations that country has the right to arrest the suspect within its borders. She claimed that there is evidence of this in this matter.

Minister Maynard-Gibson also suggested that the alleged crime amounted to a threat to the pre-clearance facility at the Lynden Pindling International Airport, one of the few pre-clearance facilities in the world.

"If what is being alleged is true, what is happening is that the pre-clearance facility in The Bahamas, which is key to tourism, the lifeblood of The Bahamas, is being threatened," she said.

"Bahamians have to be concerned that that pre-clearance facility is protected and that we as a people are not seen to be facilitating or alleged to be [facilitating offences]. We must fight allegations of the Lynden Pindling International Airport or any other airport in The Bahamas being utilized to transship drugs to America.

"…We would be outraged and enraged also if persons were doing it the other way; if there was a pre-clearance facility in the United States to the Bahamas and persons were transshipping drugs, guns or any other illicit material into the Bahamas. Similarly the U.S. Government is adamant that they are going to protect their sovereign rights."

In the last few weeks some observers have continued to criticize the government and its agencies and accuse the powers that be of complicity in the men’s arrest.

Minister Maynard-Gibson however insisted that there was also no evidence of the judicial system having been circumvented or aborted and classified the situation as merely one in which the United States exercised its sovereign right to arrest persons who commit offences in their country.

The attorney general expressed her unreserved support of the Royal Bahamas Police Force, but said she had no information on why Bahamian police investigators had not arrested the men themselves.

Nellerene Harding, president of the Airport Airline and Allied Workers Union which represents baggage handlers at the airport, commented on the matter once again on Tuesday.

"I think the average person does not support drug trafficking in the Commonwealth of The Bahamas and the alleged breach that is against them, but it seems as if nobody or the alleged persons who seem to be involved can give any answers at this time and that is the biggest problem that is being experienced here," she said.

She urged a more thorough explanation from cabinet ministers who are ultimately responsible for security matters at the LPIA.

"If TSA training is required and if it is legislated…[and] part of our laws governing us that we do business it is not a problem…We have heard from the U.S. ambassador who made a press statement but we have not heard from any of our Cabinet colleagues that affect this area to come and state publicly…if what was done was legal by the terms and laws that govern us under the extradition treaty of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas," Ms. Harding said.

Outgoing U.S. Ambassador John Rood said it was merely a situation involving the arrests of individuals against whom there were indictments based on evidence of drug trafficking.

He said he had communicated his concern about airport security issues to Bahamian officials and had obtained a commitment from the prime minister that the matter would have been addressed.

3 January 2006