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Crown’s case against Danhai Williams on shaky ground

In a major development Tuesday afternoon, government prosecutors acknowledge that they were fighting to prevent the case from collapsing five years after charges were laid against East Kingston businessman Danhai Williams and the six co-accused in the multi-million dollar Operation Pride scandal.

The highly publicised case hit a major hurdle Tuesday morning when the prosecutors acknowledged that they cannot locate their two prime witnesses.

This forced the prosecutors to ask for an adjournment of the trial.

Senior Prosecutor Lisa Palmer told the Half Way Tree Criminal Court that the Crown cannot locate the two witnesses, Lloyd McLean and Gerald Tobias.

Mr. McLean, an engineer and Mr. Tobias, a quantity surveyor, were both employed to the National Housing Development Corporation (NHDC).

They are considered crucial to the Crown's case as they are reported to have signed off on the NHDC/Operation Pride projects.                 

Miss Palmer said that the two men are overseas and cannot be located.

She indicated that the Crown's case is in trouble if the men are not found to give testimony at the hearing.

Miss Palmer asked for another trial date for April 21st to give investigators more time to locate the men.

The Prosecutor said a determination will be made then on the future of the case if the two men cannot be found.     

Danhai Williams and the six accused were arrested and charged in October 2003 following a one-year probe into allegations of financial irregularities in the NHDC/Operation Pride projects.  

They are accused of defrauding the NHDC of $451-million. 

The other accused are financial controller of Danwills Construction Karl Kirkland; former NHDC's Director of Technical Services, Warren Sibbles and former Project Manager of the NHDC, Donovan Hill.

The other accused are Eugenny Porter; Wayne Nash and Dwight Dawkins who were all Presidents of various Provident Societies.

Mr. Williams is charged with 87 counts of fraud.

 

 



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