The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

FORMER Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis said the controversy surrounding the Royal Bahamas Police Force after the leak of voice notes is among the most severe corruption scandals the country has faced since the drug era of the 1970s and 1980s.

The voice notes purported to capture a financial quid pro-quo arrangement involving a senior police officer, a lawyer and a murdered gang leader.

“The allegations we are seeing are some of the most serious in an independent Bahamas,” Dr Minnis said in the House of Assembly. “They are also among the most serious since the drug era of the 1970s and 1980s.”

Reflecting on the drug era, Dr Minnis said it destroyed many people, communities, and families and corrupted politicians, police, Defence Force officers, lawyers, and members of the judiciary.

 “Those at the very highest levels of our country benefitted even as young and old became addicted to crack cocaine,” he said. “The Bahamian people are alarmed by the current allegations.”

 Dr Minnis reiterated his call for a commission of inquiry into gang activity and its connections to police. He said the inquiry would investigate the gang leaderships and their relationships with senior law enforcement officers and elected officials.

 Police Commissioner Clayton Fernander has said the Security and Intelligence Branch of the police force will spearhead the investigation and that the Police Complaints Inspectorate will supervise that investigation.

 A senior Davis administration official also told this newspaper that the RBPF has formally asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to send diplomatic notes requesting Scotland Yard’s help investigating the matters related to the voice notes.

 Dr Minnis, however, said this is insufficient. He said the police cannot investigate themselves when allegations involve a senior officer.

 “During the drug era, a previous PLP government kept refusing the appointment of a commission of inquiry,” he said. “Eventually, because of the extent of the corruption and the demands of the Bahamian people, the opposition, the media, and others, a commission was finally called.

 “A former prime minister was forced to act because we had been labelled a ‘nation for sale’, and because other governments were alarmed about the corruption in our country, which flowed across their borders.”

 Dr Minnis said if Mr Davis does not call a commission of inquiry, it would suggest the government is not interested in fully investigating the claims.

 The Tribune reported last Thursday that Michael Fox, Sr, the father of alleged gang leader Michael Fox, Jr, and Sandra Smith, the mother of Dino Smith, said their sons told them to release the leaked voice notes if something happened to them. Ms Smith said she never got the voice notes. Mr Fox, Sr, said he had them but was not behind their release. 

  Chief Superintendent of Police Michael Johnson, the officer-in-charge of the Central Investigation Department, has taken garden leave as authorities investigate the matter.