P.R. Campbell: Bring back Dr. Rolla to stand trial!

Declaring he was politically neutral because of his role as Chairman of the Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) and the way he was castigated by members of his own party (the New Democratic Party) when he assumed Chairmanship of the CRC, Parnell Campbell told the nation on Monday night on his ‘The Law and You’ programme that regardless of the outcome of the Privy Council’s decision he wants to know what happened in Ottley Hall.

Campbell’s remark comes on the heel of protest launched by lawyer Nicole Sylvester that the Commissioner in the present Ottley Hall Inquiry was not properly appointed. Currently, an appeal against the appointment of the Commissioner is still pending before the Privy Council.{{more}}

“If the Privy Council rules they are defective, it doesn’t nullify the need for us in St.Vincent and the Grenadines to know what happened in Ottley Hall,” said Campbell.

Campbell, an attorney who once served as Attorney General and a longstanding government minister under the NDP administration, said he is interested in knowing what happened because he was the one who signed the major agreement as Attorney General for the Government.

“So I want to know what has happened, what went wrong in Ottley Hall. As a matter of basic governance, basic trust, all Vincentians must want to know, particularly those of us who served in the Government under which this was done,” said Campbell.

Campbell expressed the view that several former government ministers, including himself, are under a cloud of suspicion.

“From the time the inquiry started, you would hear people saying to me, and Jerry Scott, and John Horne and Louis Jones and Allan Cruickshank and Mr. Mitchell and Monty Roberts, all you thief Ottley Hall money. So all of us are under a cloud and we need to have our names cleared.

“And the man who organised the scam and ripped off St. Vincent and the Grenadines, we should use every effort to bring him back here to stand trial for what he has done to this country,” said Campbell.

Campbell disclosed that on two occasions Dr. Aldo Rolla took him to Venezuela on a small four-seater aircraft to lodge complaints with the Italian Ambassador. He said that this was all part of a scam.

“On the second trip, I nearly died. We left Bequia, fore day morning in that small plane in a storm, and for an hour-and-a-half, that plane tossed up and down. I nearly died. All because Rolla was ripping off St. Vincent, and using the Government and using me in particular as part of his scheme,” Campbell lamented. Campbell said he would like to see Dr. Rolla come back to St.Vincent and the Grenadines to stand trial.

He expressed the desire for both leading political parties here, the Unity Labour Party (ULP) and the New Democratic Party (NDP) to commit themselves to concluding the inquiry in proper legal form so that Vincentians could know once and for all, what happened at Ottley Hall.

Meanwhile, Dr. Linton Lewis, Chairman of the NDP, told journalists last week the NDP had not considered whether or not the inquiry should continue.

“It is not correct to say that we will continue or we will stop the inquiry,” said Dr. Lewis.

He added: “What the New Democratic Party will do is try to ascertain what were the problems associated with this project and we will continue to do what is necessary to ensure that this never again happens in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.”