Crisis talks after islands’ PM held in cocaine sting
A BRITISH Minister flew to the British Virgin Islands for crisis talks last night as calls grew for the UK to take direct control of the overseas territory after its premier was held on drugs trafficking charges.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Amanda Milling, the Minister for Overseas Territories, was travelling to the Caribbean for urgent talks with the Governor and other leaders.
Premier Andrew Fahie, 51, was arrested on Thursday in Miami by US agents posing as members of a Mexican drug cartel.
He allegedly demanded £560,000 to let the fake traffickers move Colombian cocaine worth millions of pounds through the British Virgin Islands (BVI) to Miami and New York.
BVI official Oleanvine Maynard and her son Kadeem were also held.
Fahie allegedly told a US informant that the UK had been trying to remove him from office for years.
He is quoted in court papers as telling the informant: ‘I have plenty of people and I don’t sell them out to the British with their plans… they always want to capture people, but me, I see what they are doing, and I protect the people.’
He also allegedly said: ‘The British don’t pay me much.’
The BVI operates as a parliamentary democracy, with the premier acting as head of the elected government alongside Governor John Rankin, a British civil servant appointed by the UK Government.
It includes more than 50 islands with a total population of more than 35,000.
In an unrelated development on Friday, a critical 946-page report by a British judge recommended the BVI should be temporarily returned to UK rule. The inquiry was ordered by Governor Rankin last year and headed by British judge Sir Gary Hickinbottom, who vowed to ‘investigate the corruption, abuse of office and other serious dishonesty’.
It found millions in state funds were squandered annually by BVI politicians ‘without proper process, along with serious dishonesty in relation to sales of public property and Crown land’. Governor Rankin said the report showed that ‘unless the most drastic and urgent steps are taken’ the alleged abuses ‘will go on indefinitely’.
The report recommended a ‘temporary suspension’ of the BVI government and constitution for two years and a return to direct rule from London.
Ms Truss said: ‘Substantive legislative and constitutional change is required to restore the standards of governance.’