Crime
Premier suspends political assistant over charges
(CNS): The premier has suspended his political assistant, Kenneth Bryan, after he was charged in connection with an altercation in a night club car park in October. Bryan, who denied the charges when he spoke to CNS Monday, said he was looking forward to clearing his name and getting back to his job. Alden McLaughlin announced in the Legislative Assembly that he was placing Bryan on required paid leave. In response to questions from the opposition leader regarding why, given that Bryan is a political appointee and not a civil servant, he should have to be placed on leave, the premier said it was best to mirror what happens in the civil service.
Although paid for by the public purse, Bryan, a former political candidate, is one of just three political appointments in the premier’s office on contracts and not strictly subject to the civil service regulations. But the premier said that after discussions with the top civil service management, it was decided this was the best course of action.
“It was determined that the best course and the most obvious and fair course was to mirror what is done to civil servants when there are matters such as this,” he said, adding that he was placed on leave in same way as other civil servants under investigation.
However, there are no questions regarding Bryan's conduct in office; the charges relate to Bryan cursing at an on-duty police officer who was arresting the wrong man.
It is understood that the former TV reporter and PPM party member was assisting an off-duty police officer, who was being harassed and threatened by a former boyfriend and came to Bryan for assistance.
In the course of the arguments other people became involved, and when the police arrived they appeared to jump to the wrong conclusions. Bryan attempted to set the record straight, and although he was not involved inany violence, because he swore at an officer he was arrested and subsequently charged with assault.
Bryan is expected to make his first court appearance in January.
Police confirm cop who left scene of crash resigned
(CNS): As public focus remains on the continuing revelations about wrongdoing among government employees and the consequences, as well as the recruitment of people without proper background checks, the police have recently confirmed that an officer who left the scene of an accident last year was convicted and left the service. The 54-year-old officer was never named but an RCIPS spokesperson said last week that the driver in a smash which happened in Ithmar Circle, George Town, in September 2012, who was at the time a serving police officer, resigned ahead of his prosecution for a list of driving offences.
"The officer mentioned was charged and convicted on June 6, 2013 for the offences of Careless Driving, Leaving the scene of an accident, driving without insurance and using a vehicle without a certificate of road worthiness," the RCIPS spokesperson said. “He subsequently resigned from the RCIPS before his conviction in court.”
The police did not say what damage was caused when the off-duty officer crashed or what type of vehicle he was driving, but he was suspended at the time from driving police vehicles.
Corruption reporting urged
(CNS): Although facing a firestorm himself over the recruitment of a former Jamaican cop charged with murder to the RCIPS, Police Commissioner David Baines is urging the community to report any evidence they have of corruption in the Cayman Islands. Marking the United Nation’s International Anti-Corruption Day on Tuesday, Baines released a short public statement about the issue and asked people to assist the Anti-Corruption Commission, which he chairs, by speaking up. The statement was released the day after the premier said he would be discussing with the governor the “shocking” revelation over the recruitment of the officer, who was convicted of killing a suspect in Jamaica during an investigation.
The premier has not yet joined the chorus of voices calling for Baines to resign but instead urged his political colleagues Monday to exercise restraint after many of them have, both publicly and behind closed doors, called for Baines to go.
Nevertheless, Baines remains in his post as police commissioner and also as chair of the ACC.
In the statement (posted below in full) he said that Cayman, like most jurisdiction,s has been exposed to corruption in many forms and on various levels. But so far the RCIPS Anti-Corruption Unit has succeeded in just one conviction, and despite the continued widespread allegations and recent charges and suspensions in high places, securing the evidence against those accused has proved very difficult for what is one of the smallest and underfunded units in the RCIPS.
Elvis Ebanks, a former police officer, was found guilty of soliciting a bribe in exchange for not investigating a possible phone theft. But having appealed the conviction, he was immediately released on bail and has not yet served any of the three year sentence he was given earlier this year.
Although others have been arrested under the anti-corruption law and some cases are continuing, others were prosecuted under different legislation. Edlin Myles, the former deputy chair of the National Housing and Development Trust, was originally charged with corruption offences but they were not continued. He was charged and found guilty of deception and received a six month jail term, but he has also been on bail since the sentencing in June pending his appeal against the conviction.
The former premier, McKeeva Bush, was also charged under the anti-corruption law in relation to the alleged misuse of his government credit card when he drew cash in casinos to play the slots in Las Vegas, the Bahamas and Florida. However, Bush, amidst much publicity regarding the revelations at trial, was cleared on all counts by a jury in October.
“The corrupt practices and behaviours we have witnessed have affected us all,” Baines said in his statement Tuesday. “They have caused us to become angry, shameful and embarrassed; they have caused us to question some of our public officials, and they have brought unwanted attention to our islands.
“Being able to combat corruption is an important part of any jurisdiction’s quest to promote and encourage democracy. Whilst the Anti-Corruption Commission is responsible for the administration of the Anti-Corruption Law, the Commission cannot properly discharge its duties without your help. The Commission needs you to speak up, to take a stand, to report corruption. If you have sound evidence or solid information about corruption-related offences, in accordance with the Anti-Corruption Law, you have a part to play,” he said, as he urged people to break the corruption chain in line with the UN’s theme for this year.
Corruption is a worldwide phenomenon and many activists still believe and accuse Cayman and other offshore jurisdictions of facilitating corruption as a result of the secrecy laws surrounding the financial system. Cayman continues to deny that it is any more likely to harbour the ill-gotten gains of corruption than any other jurisdiction but it remains under fire.
In his own statement about the issue, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, “To dismantle corruption’s high walls, I urge every nation to ratify and implement the UN Convention against Corruption. Its ground breaking measures in the areas of prevention, criminalization, international cooperation and asset recovery have made important inroads, but there is much more to do.”
The UN believes attitudes on corruption are changing and that as recently as ten years ago corruption was only whispered about. Now there are signs of growing intolerance toward corruption and more and more politicians and chief executives are being tried and convicted, the organisation stated.
According to global estimates, every year over one trillion dollars are paid in bribes, while an estimated $2.6 trillian is stolen through corruption. In developing countries, the United Nations Development Programme said that funds lost to corruption are estimated at 10 times the amount of official development assistance.
The latest Transparency International report on the Corruption Perception index reveals that the top five most corrupt countries are Somalia, North Korea, Sudan, Afghanistan and South Sudan. The least corrupt countries in 2014 are Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Norway and, ironically given its reputation for banking secrecy, Switzerland.
To report corruption in Cayman call the confidential reporting line on 928-1747.
For more information on the Anti-Corruption Commission or anti-corruption efforts visit the website at www.anticorruptioncommission.ky or call 244-3685.
See the latest local anti-corruption commission annual report here.
Robbery suspect jailed after charge
(CNS): A 39-year-old man from Bodden Town who was arrested in connection with a knife-point mugging in the Countryside Shopping village car park last week has been remanded in custody to HMP Northward following charges and a Summary Court hearing over the weekend. The man has been charged with robbery following the mugging at around 5:00 Thursday evening, when he threatened a woman who was with her two youngchildren with the knife and demanded cash before making off on foot. He was arrested a short time later.
Ebanks acquitted of murder
(CNS): A jury took until late in the evening Monday to reach the unanimous verdict that Leonard Antonio Ebanks was not guilty of murder but guilty of accessory after the fact in the killing of 40-year-old Swiss Banker, Frederic Bise, in 2008. During his summation, the judge explained to the jury that if they did not believe Ebanks was one of the killers but that he may have assisted in the aftermath of the murder, they could return the alternative guilty verdict of accessory. Following the murder acquittal, an emotional Ebanks, who is already serving a life sentence for the murder ofTyrone Burrell in 2010, was scheduled by the court to be sentenced on Wednesday.
The evidence that supported the case against Ebanks came only from two women who claimed that he had confessed to being involved in the murder with his cousin, Chad Anglin, who was convicted of killing Bise earlier this year. There were no eye-witnesses or forensic evidence or any other circumstantial evidence that placed Ebanks at the scene of Bise’s killing.
There were differences in women’s evidence against Ebanks. One implied that Ebanks may have turned up after Bise was dead and the other said he had claimed to be part of the killing.
There were also significant inconsistencies in the evidence given by both of them, not just between the accounts they each gave on the stand during the trial, which they said had come from Ebanks, but in their own witness statements and interviews with the police over the five years since Bise’s body was discovered in the back of his own burned out car in Mount Pleasant West Bay on 8 February 2008.
Ebanks had emphatically denied killing Bise when he took the stand and insisted the evidence from his ex-lover was a lie made up out of malice, as she went to the police on the night he left her to go back to his wife.
The second woman was the helper at a local drug yard in West Bay, where Ebanks, a self-confessed crack addict, frequented. He claimed she had lied because she was desperate and was saying what she did for money, as the police had placed her in a paid witness protection programme after she gave what Ebanks claimed was untruthful evidence against him in the Burrell murder case, which led to his conviction in that case.
On this occasion, however, the evidence from the women raised doubts about Ebanks' guilt regarding his part in the brutal murder, leaving the jury to conclude that Ebanks was not the killer but may have assisted Anglin and whoever else may have been involved in the banker’s death.
Bise, the crown believes, was killed following an encounter with Anglin and Ebanks in a sex-for-money deal. During the trial the court heard that, having recently divorced, Bise, who was homosexual, began living a fully open gay life, and according to friends, was engaging in increasingly risky behaviour, seeking sex with multiple men and looking for partners to engage in outdoor sex romps.
Retrial in child killing case set for summer
(CNS): A West Bay man will be tried for the second time this summer for the murder of a 4-year-old child in February 2010. On Friday morning Devon Anglin (29) entered not guilty pleas for the second time to the murder of Jeremiah Barnes, the attempted murder of Andy Barnes and possession of an unlicensed firearm, as a new three week trial was fixed for July. Jeremiah was killed while sitting in the back of his family’s car whena masked gunman opened fire at a gas station on Hell Road. The crown claimed the gunman was Devon Anglin, who was trying to shoot gang rival Andy Barnes, the child’s father, but he was acquitted following a judge alone trial in August 2011.
The crown waited over 18 months to learn that its appeal to overturn that decision had succeeded. The appeal court decision was delivered last month, when the president announced that the crown’s appeal was allowed, as the judge had erred in his review of the evidence.
As a result, the higher court ordered a retrial. Anglin appeared in court on Friday and when the charges were read he again denied being the gunman who had opened fire on the Barnes’ car as it was parked on the forecourt of the West Bay station.
When Anglin returns to the dock for the re-trial, it will be more than five years since the incident but the case depends heavily on the eye-witness evidence of both Andy Barnes and his wife, Dorlisa Barnes, both of whom said that Anglin was the man they saw shoot them, along with CCTV footage taken from the gas station.
The judge had, however, rejected both of the Barnes’ evidence and instead favoured the witness evidence given by a gas pump attendant, which conflicted with the evidence given by Barnes and that of the CCTV.
Judge throws out weak drug case following re-trial
(CNS): A Jamaican national who had been previously convicted, in his absence, of drug trafficking was acquitted Wednesday due to lack of evidence. Danien Cecil Henry was found guilty of drug trafficking in 2009 in Summary Court. After he was recaptured in 2013 following his escape from George Town police station, he began serving an 11 year sentence. But after applying for and achieving a successful appeal in the Grand Court, the verdict was overturned and a new trial ordered, which took place last week. The retrial ended in a not guilty verdict half way through, when Justice Malcolm Swift threw out the case and directed the jury to acquit, following a no case submission.
Henry (33) was accused of supplying more than 20 cocaine pellets in 2008 to a witness who had swallowed and transported them to the Cayman Islands from Jamaica. The witness, Dean Bayley, was later arrested and gave evidence against Henry. Bayley admitted smuggling the drugs but claimed Henry talked him into carrying more than 66 grams of cocaine. He was sentenced to three-and-a-half years following his guilty plea.
Justice Swift threw out the crown's case, which was based entirely on Bayley’s word with no corroborating evidence. The court heard that the evidence was full of inconsistencies and described by Swift as “not satisfactory” in order to justly convict Henry.
The defence attorney in the case, Guy Dillaway-Parry, had suggested the case against Henry was in the first place unjustifiable because there was no supporting evidence, as he pointing to major weaknesses in the police investigation.
Lawyer claims nothing new in cold case
(CNS): As Courtney Griffiths QCsummarised the case for Leonard Ebanks, who has denied killing Swiss Banker Frederic Bise, the lawyer said nothing had changed in the evidence regarding the case since the original investigation, when the police believed then there was insufficient evidence against his client. The only thing that was different now, Griffiths told the court on Friday, was that his client had in the interim been tried and convicted of another murder. Griffiths said there was not a single shred of new evidence against Ebanks in this case that the cops did not have in 2010, when he was not even arrested because the evidence was so scant. But now, on the same evidence, his client was charged with a murder he had nothing to do with.
As a result of Ebanks' early conviction for the fatal shooting of Tyrone Burrell in September 2010 largely being based on an alleged confession he made to a helper who worked in the yard where Burrell was killed, the lawyer said that the crown knew that the jury would hear about his existing conviction. He said that Ebanks was forced to talk about that killing when he took the stand in this case, and as a result the police knew he would be an easy target.
Although the crown had insisted there was no conspiracy to try and frame an innocent man, Griffiths said there was not a shred of real evidence against his client. The entire case is based on the contradictory and inconsistence evidence given by the helper, who claimed Ebanks confessed to her on several occasions, and a former girlfriend, who said he had confessed to her once.
Despite the fundamentals of their stories being similar and the women allegedly were not known to each other, Griffiths pointed out that the women could very easily have colluded in their stories as they live just yards apart. Ebanks’ ex-girlfriend went to the police on the night he left her to go back to his wife and the helper made herstatement of an alleged confession only after she had already become a paid protected witness.
With no other eye witnesses, no forensic evidence, a considerable amount of speculation by the crown on what actually happened to Bise after he left Kelly’s bar with Chad Anglin in the early morning hours of 8 February, Griffiths told the jury that they should not convict his client as he wasn’t there and knew nothing about the murder.
He pressed home the fact that even when the cold case team took over the investigation and conducted what was supposedly a thorough investigation, after allegations that the first one was “unsatisfactory”, he said no new evidence came to light. He pointed out that one police officer had dismissed the allegations made by Ebanks’ former lover as possibly malicious.
The lawyer noted that even with the second alleged confession evidence from the helper two years later, police said evidence was still insufficient to charge Ebanks.
Griffiths noted that a criminal trial is not a “beauty contest” and he was not asking the jury to like his client, who was an admitted drug addict and criminal. But he pointed out that the verdict they returned had to be based on the evidence and the only true verdict was one of not guilty.
Justice Charles Quin, the presiding judge in the case, will be summing up the evidence for the jury Monday morning and directing them in the law. Ebanks has been charged with murder but the jury will also be offered the alternative count of aiding and abetting.
Chad Anglin has already been convicted of killing the Swiss banker after he was seen on CCTV with the victim at Kelly’s bar in West Bay and seen by witnesses leaving the bar with Bise. Anglin’s DNA was also found at the victim's house on cigarette butts and his car.
The crown claims that Ebanks assisted Anglin to murder Bise with a concrete block, possible in the Barkers area. The crown says the men then drove around West Bay with the body in the back of the vehicle before the car was returned to the house in Mount Pleasant, where Bise was living, and set it alight.
Although the crown did not set out a clear and precise motive, it has claimed that Bise, who was gay and living and increasingly risky lifestyle, had entered into a sex for money arrangement with Anglin and Ebanks on the night he was killed.
Premier’s political assistant charged in cop altercation
(CNS): Kenneth Bryan, the premier’s political assistant, was charged by the RCIPS on Friday as a result of an argument he had with a police officer in a nightclub parking lot after he tried to prevent the officer from arresting the wrong man. Bryan, who has denied the allegations, is understood to have intervened in a dispute between an off duty female police officer and a former boyfriend after she had sought Bryan’s help. A number of other people also became involved but when the police arrived Bryan saw that they were jumping to the wrong conclusions. In an effort to set things straight, Bryan himself ended up on the wrong side of the law and was arrested.
Despite what appears to have been a misunderstanding, because Bryan engaged in a verbal altercation with the police officer, he is being charged with assaulting police and using threatening and abusive language.
The incident occurred in the parking lot of Dream Night Club on the West Bay Road at around 9:55pm on Saturday 11 October. Bryan will appear in Summary Court on 12 January.
Bryan, who now works in the premier's office, is a former TV reporter with Cayman27 news. He resigned from the station, however, when he ran for office on the PPM ticket in George Town. Bryan remains at work and has not been placed on required leave.
Officer resigns from jail
(CNS): A prison officer who was placed on required leave this week as a result of revelations that he had a criminal conviction which he had not declared has resigned. Although the prison has still not confirmed any details, CNS revealed yesterday that the guard is Ricardo Fisher from Jamaica, who was convicted of a sex offence in the US in 2009 and deported from New York State, where he was living at the time. He is listed as a registered sex offender there but he did not reveal this conviction to HMP Northward, where he was working as a guard. The prison concluded its investigation Friday and the officer was to be formally charged before he opted to quit.
In a short statement released Friday evening the prison said:
“Suspended Prison Officer suspected of providing false information on the application to the Prison Service has today resigned with immediate effect. The investigation into the matter was completed today and the suspended officer was called in to be formerly charged under the Prison Officers Discipline Regulations (1999 Revision). At that time, the officer opted to resign from his post.”
No one, however, has stated how the guard slipped through the background clearance or how he had obtained a police clearance certificate. There has been no explanation about when he was recruited or under what circumstances and there has been no indication from the prison about efforts to tighten up its recruitment practise.
The officer was listed on a US website, which offers a quick and easy background search on any name for a catalogue of possible offences or infractions and takes seconds to do the search.