Following the exposure of corrupt governments selling diplomatic passports and immunity for political funding, UWP’s Lennox Linton has strongly denied his involvement in the video documentary aired by Al Jazeera accusing Dominica and other Caribbean countries of complicity.
Titled “Diplomats for Sale”, the first part of the documentary aired on November 25th, 2019. It reveals politicians in Dominica and Grenada among others receiving campaign funding from foreign businessmen in return for diplomatic passports or diplomatic immunity. The video shows UWP and DLP top officials willing and ready to collect large sums of money in exchange for political appointments. Linton and Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit deny the allegations raised in the documentary.
Former Dominican prime minister, Oliver Seraphin, was secretly filmed in the documentary stating his readiness to arrange a deal involving an ambassadorship in Asia in return for $470,000. The video also indicated that Attorney David Bruney and Seraphin dealt with Linton in pursuance of diplomats for sale business. However, Linton stated that he has no such dealing with anyone and has never even seen or communicated with Seraphin in over 5 years.
“I have had no discussions with Oliver Seraphin,” Linton explaied. “As a matter of fact, I have not spoken to or seen Oliver Seraphin in more than 5 years. I didn’t even know he was in Dominica. We have had absolutely no conversation about campaign financing, far less campaign finance money in exchange for diplomatic passports or diplomatic immunity.”
To further clear the air, the opposition leader said he spoke with David Bruney about a state asset recovery program which he intends to pursue after getting to power. He said he wanted Bruney to use his network of friends and international contacts to locate state assets scattered all over the world with a view to recovering them back for Dominica. Linton said he signed a MOU with Bruney for this agreement, but he is not in a position to know if anything went down between Bruney and Seraphin.
Linton noted that Al Jazeera claims their journalist possesses a document proof that the opposition will confer ambassadorship on certain persons after he becomes prime minister. He said the potential ambassador spoke to him and even sent him WhatsApp messages involving his chat and contacts with Bruney. He said Al Jazeera should have the WhatsApp messages and contacts their journalist has and should have published it as well, stating it has “absolutely nothing to do with any diplomatic passport, or any ambassadorship or any diplomatic immunity in exchange for money, nothing.”
Linton has made it clear that within the first 100 days of winning the coming elections and assuming control of the government, he will sponsor a bill in parliament to ban the sales of diplomatic passports or immunity in Dominica. He said he considers the sales of such immunity a crime against humanity and that “I think it’s a violation to the United Nations Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations of 1961.”
This article is copyright © 2019 DOM767
