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Caribbean L 16 ife, OCTOBER 25-31, 2019 BQ
Former Barbados Government minister, Donville Inniss.
Photo by George Alleyne
Barbados minister’s
New York trial moved
By George Alleyne
Amid numerous twists and turns, the
trial in New York of former Barbados
Government minister, Donville Inniss,
on money laundering charges has been
moved from the scheduled Oct. 28 date
to January 2020.
Inniss was originally charged alone in
March 2018 with one count of conspiracy
to launder money and two counts of
money laundering but the allegations
were upgraded by the United States
Department of Justice in a superseding
indictment to include two former executives
of a Barbados insurance company,
Alex Tasker and Ingrid Inness, as alleged
conspirators in the same charges.
The US Attorney’s Office, Eastern
District of New York stated, “the charges
stem from Inniss’ acceptance of bribes
from a Barbadian insurance company
between August 2015 and April 2016
when he was a public official”.
He is alleged to have conspired with
persons in the Barbados company, Insurance
Corporation of Barbados Limited
(ICBL), to pay him $36,000 to use his
authority to ensure that the firm’s million
dollar contract with a state-owned
company under Inniss’ ministerial portfolio
is renewed.
The US Attorney’s Office alleges that
he conspired to hide the payment by
having the money sent to a New York
dental company, then into his bank
account through several transfers.
American authorities in January
unsealed documents naming former
Barbados insurance executives, Tasker
and Inness, as the persons who allegedly
conspired with former government minister
Donville Inniss to launder money
in the United States.
Tasker and Inness remain in Barbados,
but the former government minister,
a US resident, was nabbed in Florida
.H
is trial was set for June 24 in the
Eastern District Court of New York,
then put back to October, and is now
further setback to 2020.
Reports in two Barbados newspapers,
the Nation newspaper and Barbados
TODAY, suggest that delays in the
trial stem from Inniss’ defence attorney
being committed to other cases that
could clash with the former minister’s
trial, and the prosecutor having not yet
submitted pre-trial motions.
A key issue appears to be willingness
of an official of the Barbados stateowned
company at the center of the
bribery allegations to testify.
The executive of the company, Barbados
Investment and Development Corporation
(BIDC), is said to be unwilling
to travel to the United States to testify,
and the DoJ is seeking to convince that
person to give his deposition by video.
BIDC, which fell within Inniss’ portfolio
as a government minister, is the
company that took out the milliondollar
insurance policy with ICBL, allegedly
as a result of the bribery and money
laundering conspiracy.
Additionally, the defence is protesting
admission into evidence two cheques
with a total value of US$7000 that ICBL
allegedly paid to Inniss as a ‘donation’ at
the former minister’s request.
The prosecution wants to use the
cheques as evidence that Inniss had
financial problems that eventually led to
the $36,000 conspiracy.
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