By: Staff Writer
June 4, 2021
Dominica’s Opposition leader denies taking bribe money from brother of international fugitive Mehul Choksi.
Lennox Linton, United Workers Party (UWP) leader, in a video being circulated on social media, said that he had never met with Chetan Choksi, the brother of international fugitive Mehul Choksi, who is being held in custody in Dominica
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Mr Linton also said that he could not have met with Chetan Choksi at his home in Marigot because his home in Marigot had been destroyed from the previous Hurricane Irma of 2017, in addition the day in question being reported in local and international media is the wrong day as he had not been in Marigot on May 30 but was in Marigot on May 29 attending to party matters with other senior members of the UWP.
Allegations that Linton accepted a bride to help internationally wanted Mehul Choksi to fight extradition from Dominica to India, where Choksi is wanted on charged of theft and embezzlement of $1.8bn of the Punjab National Bank in India.
Indian officials want Choksi back to answer to these charges, however the case is more complicated than a straight extradition to India from Dominica because Mr Choksi is also a passport holder of Antigua and Barbuda where he was living for the past year, hiding from Indian authorities.
This also places a negative spotlight on the very popular Citizenship by Investment programme in islands like Antigua and Barbuda who have benefitted greatly from the programme to stimulate their local economies. Dominica too has a CBI programme as well as a few other Caribbean countreies.
Antigua and Barbuda’s prime minister, Gaston Browne, has gone on record saying that the officials in Dominica are free to send Choksi back to India to face the charges. However, as the elder Choksi is being held in Dominica, allegations that he was kidnapped from Antigua and Barbuda rather than travelling under his own accord have also surfaced- allegations that have not turned out to be substantiated as yet.
Roosevelt Skerrit, Dominica’s prime minister, has been fairly silent on the entire affair and Linton is the only senior politician in Dominica speaking about the matter publically.
Linton has also come out publically in support of Choksi and has even attended his bail hearing, which was denied on Thursday and will hear the illegal entry charge on June 14. A Linton sighting in the courtroom was reported by the Associated Times, where it was said that Linton remained in the courtroom from 9am to approximately 2pm.
Opposition supports have accused the Skerrit administration of kidnapping Choksi from Antigua and bringing him to Dominica in an elaborate trap to hand him over to Indian officials.
Chetan Choksi has also denied any bribery allegations, despite being in Dominica now in support of his brother who is said to have failing health.
Choksi’s Indian lawyer, Vijay Aggarwal, said on Indian television earlier this week: “In Dominica, there is a quarantine protocol. Indeed, the brother of Mehul Choksi-Chetan Choksi has reached Dominica to ensure that his brother gets medical attention. He has nothing to do with the legal strategy and he is in compulsory quarantine. He is in the hotel quarantine facility. He cannot meet anyone. Nobody is going to risk life.”