By Hayden Boyce – Publisher & Editor-in-Chief The Sun T & C

Prosecutors in the Turks and Caicos Islands have decided to bring fresh charges and pursue a new corruption trial against former premier Michael Misick, three of his former colleagues and as many local lawyers, following last month’s sudden death of the judge who was hearing the case for the past five years.

However, the new case will not start for at least another month, because Misick’s lead attorney Senior Counsel Reginald Armour, who wanted all charges against the former premier to be dropped immediately, said he will file a constitutional motion addressing his client’s right to a fair trial within a reasonable time.

Queen’s Counsel Jerome Lynch, the senior lawyer for former government minister McAllister Hanchell, said other defence lawyers also will file a joint application for abuse of process and they will object to the prosecution’s plan to again have a trial without a jury.

Chief Justice Mabel Agyemang will first have to hear those preliminary matters on March 25th, 2021, and if there are appeals, the start of the new trial would be impacted.

During a virtual court hearing on Monday, March 1st, 2021, the Chief justice said: “Based on those arguments, a decision will be made as to whether or not the trial will continue, and should the trial continue, I would need to know what to do about a judge.”

Chief Justice Agyemang said she has not yet decided whether a new judge will be imported to preside over the new trial, or if she will hear it or assign it to either of the two other Supreme Court judges, Mr. Justice Shiraz Aziz or Madame Justice Tanya Lobban Jackson.

“I need a little time to think about pertinent matters,” she said. “I cannot promise you much, but whichever way it goes, there will be speed and there will be finality.”

Lead prosecutor Andrew Mitchell, QC, told the Chief Justice that the new trial, which will exclude Lisa Hall and Earlson Robinson, against whom all charges were dropped, will be presented differently “in scope and size”, and will include charges of bribery, conspiracy to defraud and money laundering.

He said the charges in relation to the Progressive National Party (PNP) will be limited to conspiracy to launder money.

The defendants in the trial are former premier Michael Misick, former deputy premier Floyd Hall, former Cabinet ministers McAllister Hanchell and Jeffrey Hall, and attorneys Clayton Greene, Chalmers Misick and Melbourne Wilson.

Mitchell is taking instructions from Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Eugene Otuonye, QC, who, on February 15th was given two weeks by the Chief Justice to decide the future of the corruption case which came to an end when Mr. Justice Paul Harrison passed away in his native Jamaica on Sunday, February 7th, 2021.

The British prosecutor told the court that Otuonye, Deputy DPP Angela Brooks and co-prosecutors Quinn Hawkins and Kate Duncan, had a “final decision meeting” on Saturday, February 27th and concluded that it was in the public interest to have a new trial.

He said they gave “the most careful consideration” to arguments from defence lawyers who wanted the case to end, but they also factored the prosecution policy which includes the “nature and seriousness” of the allegations, being “high level political corruption”, the period of time of the alleged offences between 2003 and 2008, the impact on the Turks and Caicos Islands community, including the “loss of public funds and resources for private gain”.

Mitchell said the DPP also considered the fact that during the aborted trial there was actually court for less than 45 percent of the available sittings days.

According to Mitchell, the DPP also had regard for the public purse, noting that within the prosecution policy it is a relevant factor “but it is by no means a trump card”.

He added: “The DPP has concluded that the evidential and public interest stages of the prosecution policy have been satisfied and that a retrial is therefore absolutely in the public interest so that the defendants and the alleged victims, the Turks and Caicos Islands and its people, can benefit from a verdict in this case.”

During the Zoom hearing, the defence lawyers complained that last Friday they wrote to the DPP and copied Supreme Court Registrar Renee McLean asking the prosecution to share their decision about the future of the case so they could properly consult their clients, but there was no response.

However, Chief Justice Agyemang said it would have been highly improper for the DPP to have shared his decision with the defence lawyers prior to the March 1st court hearing.

“At the last adjourned date, I said the DPP should make up his mind and inform the court, so I did not expect that he would have given the information to everybody else before today,” she said.

“I do not believe that what they did was wrong. In fact, I would have considered it discourteous to the court for the information to be sent by email along with everyone else. That is the end of the matter.”

In one voice, the defence lawyers said they were disappointed in the DPP’s decision to have a new trial.

Earl Witter, QC, the lead lawyer for former Deputy Premier Floyd Hall, said he was “disappointed, although not entirely surprised”, adding that his client “thoroughly appreciates that in the Turks and Caicos Islands the rule of law prevails”.

Lynch, who is the spokesman for the defence attorneys, said the decision to have a new trial was “fantastically disappointing news” for all the defendan

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