Richard Lord

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie says re­ports of the ex­is­tence of an un­de­clared Cay­man Is­lands bank ac­count in the name of a for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter and his wife are "a to­tal fab­ri­ca­tion and a hoax cal­cu­lat­ed to cre­ate con­fu­sion in the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty." In a state­ment in the Low­er House yes­ter­day, Je­re­mie said that was one of many ru­mours be­ing spread across the coun­try, which were in­tend­ed to dis­turb the peace and sta­bil­i­ty of the na­tion. Deal­ing with the bank ac­count is­sue, Je­re­mie said: "The ACIB (An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau) has ful­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed these re­ports, and has de­ter­mined that they were a to­tal fab­ri­ca­tion and a hoax, cal­cu­lat­ed to cre­ate con­fu­sion in the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty."

Je­re­mie al­so com­ment­ed on Wednes­day's po­lice in­ter­view with Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning on an af­fi­davit filed by Ja­maat al Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr. The af­fi­davit had claimed that Man­ning had promised the 1990 in­sur­rec­tion­ists ben­e­fits in ex­change for their sup­port in the 2002 gen­er­al elec­tion. "De­spite the ori­gin of the af­fi­davit, and the fact that the ex­is­tence of any deal was de­nied on oath in the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of the very de­po­nent of the af­fi­davit, the bu­reau has an oblig­a­tion to in­ves­ti­gate, and the prime min­is­ter, like any oth­er cit­i­zen has the right to re­fute the al­le­ga­tions," Je­re­mie said. He said that was what tran­spired dur­ing the in­ter­view.

Je­re­mie added that Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert was al­so a mem­ber of the then Cab­i­net when the mat­ters were al­leged to have tak­en place and was al­so a like­ly can­di­date for in­ter­view. "That is all that has tran­spired...there is noth­ing in what has tak­en place which war­rants the dra­mat­ic and sen­sa­tion­al head­lines which have been dom­i­nat­ing our na­tion's me­dia," he said. Je­re­mie said he was forced to com­ment on the re­ports be­cause of their "un­re­lent­ing fer­vour" and "the ease with which they are be­ing dis­sem­i­nat­ed." He al­so de­nied a News­day re­port which claimed that In­ter­pol had con­firmed the au­then­tic­i­ty of doc­u­ments claim­ing that two di­rec­tors of CH De­vel­op­ment were rel­a­tives of for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of Ude­cott, Calder Hart.

"The ACIB has been dili­gent­ly pur­su­ing this mat­ter and has re­ceived no such con­fir­ma­tion from ei­ther In­ter­pol or the Malaysian au­thor­i­ties," Je­re­mie said. Hart had de­nied any re­la­tions with the of­fi­cials dur­ing tes­ti­mo­ny in the Uff Com­mis­sion of En­quiry last year. Je­re­mie ad­vised cit­i­zens that not every ru­mour should be tak­en as fact. "While, ad­mit­ted­ly, we are op­er­at­ing in a time of height­ened po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, much en­er­gy is be­ing ex­pend­ed to dis­sem­i­nate mis­in­for­ma­tion with the clear pur­pose of dis­turb­ing the peace and sta­bil­i­ty to which we have grown ac­cus­tomed un­der this ad­min­is­tra­tion," he said.

Asked to elab­o­rate on that com­ment dur­ing an in­ter­view lat­er, Je­re­mie said: "I think there is a gen­er­al sense of un­ease in the so­ci­ety at large, and I think that sense of un­ease is be­ing fu­elled in large part by ru­mours which are not true." He said he want­ed to set the record straight as the au­thor­i­ties work dili­gent­ly to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ters.

(See full text of AG's state­ment here:

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