Is Martin Bridger actually here in Cayman as he fights his legal battle with the Cayman Islands Attorney General that is being held behind closed doors in our Courts of Justice?

We have had reports from persons informing us they have seen the former senior investigating officer of Operation Tempura here, but iNews Cayman hasn’t actually been able to verify this 100%. I shall have to camp myself outside the Court building but he may have already left.

One can have a certain amount of sympathy for Mr. Bridger. Yes you did read this right. I’ll explain.

Four officers from the UK Metropolitan Police Force, Martin Bridger, Richard Coy, John Kemp and Stephen DeBurgh arrived here to carry out the infamous corruption probe under an unregistered trading name, MMB Associate Consultants. One would have thought that third-party insurance would have been taken out by the Cayman Islands Government to cover these officers but it wasn’t. The MMB contract was set up in February 2008 by the now discredited Scotland Yard’s Police Assistant Commissioner John Yates and might be an interesting subject of investigation………?

So, because of the failure of this insurance being taken out, poor Mr. Bridger has had to pay his own legal costs.

Now aren’t you sympathetic?

Before coming to Cayman, Martin Bridger was a member of a group of cops that were listed as “The Untouchables” and led by Paul Condon who was the Met Police Commissioner from 1993-2000. There were 43 police officers in this elite group ranging from Commissioners down to Detective Inspectors and belonging to ”The Untouchables” meant instant promotion.

On Wednesday 21^st March, 2012, an article appeared in londonstreetgangs.blogspot.co.uk under the title “Untouchables: Dirty Cops, Bent Justice and Racism in Scotland Yard”.

The article states “Uncovering a history of corruption, cover up, “spin” (lies) and high profile cases such as that of Stephen Lawrence, David Norris and Daniel Morgan, all cases whereby evidence was tainted by corruption leaving them unsolved.”

For more read: http://londonstreetgangs.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/untouchables-dirty-cops-bent-justice.html

Maybe you aren’t quite so sympathetic now?

There appears to be a connection with Martin Bridger, Martin Polaine (the UK barrister who advised the investigators, was later expelled from the profession, admitting “fundamental and far-reaching errors” and “demonstrating poor judgement and flawed thinking”) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).

When ex Governor, Stuart Jack terminated Bridger’s contract in April 2009 (he was replaced by Anne Lawrence, a serving Met officer on a salary plus expenses basis) he went to work with Polaine’s company Amicus Legal and BGP (in September 2009 they were all working together in Kenya) then, at the end of 2010, he became a director of what was re-branded as Sambei, Bridger and Polaine or SBP. They apparently do a lot of work on contracts that are only accessible through what amounts to FCO sponsorship.

The Sambei is Arvinder Sambei who was the lead prosecutor in the Lotfi Raissi case. Lotfi Raissi was the first person charged in connection with the September 11, 2001 attacks. However, in 2003 a British court ruled that the charges against Raissi were without evidence, and that he had no association with the attacks.

British prosecutor Arvinder Sambei publicly announced that the FBI had discovered Raissi’s name in Salem al-Hazmi‘s rental vehicle; that a raid on Raissi’s home had turned up video evidence of him and Hani Hanjour celebrating together on his computer; that further telephone records confirmed their suspicions that he had trained four of the hijackers in an effort to help support terrorism against U.S. interests, that his pilot logbook was missing all data from March 2000-June 2001, and stated that they might seek the death penalty.^[8] However once his trial began, they were unable to produce any such evidence.

In an announcement on 23 April 2010, after years of wrangles, law suits and overturning of judgements, the Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw announce Raissi is eligible for up to £2m compensation.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotfi_Raissi

Arvinder Sambei has been accused of lying to the Court and deliberately withheld material showing Raissi was innocent.

Of course, this has nothing to do with Bridger. He was just Sambei’s partner.

It is not inconceivable then that Bridger did not cross paths with the FCO’s former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Henry Bellingham……..

I will leave any more comments to our Editor-in- Chief.

On Wednesday (9) John Evans, the reporter at the centre of the break-in (that wasn’t a break-in) to Cayman Net News office wrote to Cayman News Service saying,

“Thanks to an FOI request to RCIPS last year I discovered that all the records from the early Tempura investigations, in which I was involved, had been officially transferred to the Met in the UK. The only problem was that they never arrived there and further requests to the Met have confirmed this.

“Who now actually holds the records is unclear, as is the legal status of the documents in relation to the various contracts that were entered into during Operations Tempura and Cealt. What is clear is that some of the contents of the complaint filed by Martin Polaine in 2010 and dismissed in March 2011 by a still secret 185-page, CI$335K report that was commissioned by [Governor] Duncan Taylor were probably based on that material.”

All fascinating stuff, isn’t it? But will we ever get to the truth?

So, is it true – Bridger was back? And do we know anymore about him?