Arthur Porter in bizarre battle to keep his luxurious, private Caribbean villa, Serendipity

By Brian Hutchinson From National Post

‘ Serendipity. Porter bought the 3.8-acre property in 2011.

Arthur Porter had a name for his private retreat in St. Kitts and Nevis, a tiny Caribbean island nation where he had quietly obtained citizenship. He called the place Serendipity.

According to one local source, Dr. Porter hosted people “from all over the world” at Serendipity, while serving as chairman of Canada’s Security and Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), the federally appointed body that keeps tabs on CSIS and has access to Canada’s state secrets.

After Dr. Porter resigned from SIRC amidst controversy in late 2011 and left Canada — and before he was charged by Canadian authorities with fraud, conspiracy and breach of trust — visitors included senior members of the Venezuelan government led by then-president Hugo Chavez, or so claims the same source, who says he worked for Dr. Porter in the Caribbean.

The property is now involved in a bizarre standoff between Dr. Porter and the Canadian government, foreign authorities and police. Last month, acting under the Inter-American Convention against Corruption and its own Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis took steps to freeze Dr. Porter’s assets in that country.

An “order of restraint” document filed June 17 in the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court and obtained by the National Post identifies Serendipity, on the island of Nevis, and another property on St. Kitts, as Porter-held assets to be frozen. It also refers to a “written request” by “Canadian authorities.”

Justice officials in both Canada and St. Kitts and Nevis refused to comment on the matter this week.

An oncologist by profession, Dr. Porter is languishing in a Panamanian prison, where he is fighting extradition to Canada. His lawyer in Panama, Ricardo Bilonick, did not return messages left at his office.

Serendipity now sits empty, the gardens untended, the grass overgrown. No one answers the telephone. Dr. Porter bought the 3.8-acre property with swimming pool and luxurious 2,500-square-foot villa in 2011, while he served as SIRC chairman.

Months later, the National Post revealed his unusual business arrangement with a notorious international lobbyist. The proposed deal involved Dr. Porter’s native Sierra Leone and his attempts to obtain through the lobbyist a $120-million grant from the Russian Federation.

Those revelations and Dr. Porter’s representations as Sierra Leone’s “ambassador plenipotentiary” raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest in Canada, as well as the federal government’s appointments and vetting process.

Dr. Porter offered his resignation from SIRC to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who immediately accepted. He also resigned as head of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), Quebec’s largest health-care provider.

But the worst was still to come for Dr. Porter.

Early last year, anti-corruption police in Quebec accused him of taking part in an alleged kickback scheme involving a $1.3-billion MUHC hospital construction and maintenance contract awarded to a consortium led by SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., the scandal-plagued engineering giant based in Montreal.

Dr. Porter was charged with fraud, laundering criminal proceeds, breach of trust and conspiracy. Several others were charged as well, including two former SNC-Lavalin executives.

By the time charges were laid, Dr. Porter was in the Caribbean and spending most of his time with his family at a seaside home in Bahamas, where he is also a citizen. (Dr. Porter apparently has citizenship in at least four countries: Sierra Leone, Bahamas, St. Kitts and Nevis and Canada. He is also a member of Canada’s Privy Council.)

In the Bahamas, Dr. Porter told reporters he’d been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and was too ill to travel to Canada and answer to the kickback allegations.

But within weeks, Dr. Porter and his wife had attempted to travel from the Bahamas to St. Kitts and Nevis, via Panama. They were arrested at the Panama City airport on an international warrant. Pamela Porter later agreed to return to Canada, where she is charged with money laundering related to the alleged MUHC kickback scheme. She made bail last year and remains in Quebec, awaiting trial.

Rather than surrender to Canadian authorities and return to Canada, her husband launched a public relations offensive from the notorious La Joya prison, outside Panama City.

Speaking through Mr. Bilonick, Dr. Porter claims he was on a “humanitarian” mission to St. Kitts and Nevis, on behalf of Sierra Leone, at the time of his arrest last year. He says his detention in Panama — now in its 14th month — is illegal. His cancer has spread; it’s remarkable that he’s still alive.

Mr. Bilonick has written a long essay about his client’s Panamanian “ordeal.” It’s posted on a website managed by members of Dr. Porter’s family. According to Mr. Bilonick, Dr. Porter was “a serving Ambassador of another country” at the time his arrest, and his detention is “in complete disregard of the diplomatic immunities that safeguard and protect the emissaries of foreign countries, especially those in transit through a third country.”

But in a “personal statement” he distributed in November 2011, Dr. Porter downplayed his “honorary ambassadorship” in Sierra Leone, saying it “confers no diplomatic credentialing or representation to any country or entity.”

While Dr. Porter holds a St. Kitts and Nevis passport, acquired through the country’s citizenship by investment program, the government there insists he was never a member of its own diplomatic corps.

St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Denzil Douglas said last month that while his cabinet did recommend Dr. Porter’s appointment as Consul General to Bahamas, the Bahamians have “not responded in the affirmative up to this moment.”

Mr. Douglas did not explain why Dr. Porter had been considered for the job in the first place. It remains a mystery, too, why Canada’s Prime Minister appointed Dr. Porter to SIRC. Not a serendipitous decision, it turns out.

IMAGES: Swimming pool at Arthur Porter’s St. Kitts and Nevis villa ‘ Serendipity. Porter bought the 3.8-acre property in 2011. Realtor photo

AP – Jeff ToddArthur Porter speaks at his home in Nassau, Bahamas, Mar. 2, 2013.

Realtor photo View of the Caribbean Sea at Arthur Porter’s St. Kitts and Nevis villa ‘ Serendipity.

Realtor photo Entrance courtyard at Arthur Porter’s St. Kitts and Nevis villa ‘Serendipity.’

Realtor photo Great room at Arthur Porter’s St. Kitts and Nevis villa ‘Serendipity.’

Realtor photo Sun deck off master bedroom at Arthur Porter’s St. Kitts and Nevis villa ‘Serendipity.’

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