A major scandal has erupted in The Bahamas following the recent spectacular US Coastguard rescue of 11 Bahamians from a plane crash off Florida and the subsequent arrest of a local businessman wanted by the DEA for alleged cocaine trafficking.
US officials say they were lucky to discover that one of the 11 passengers aboard the crashed chartered Beechcraft plane ferrying locals between Bahamian islands to vote in elections on May 12 had been a businessman wanted by the agency for alleged drug trafficking.
And ironically, aircraft Captain Ian Nixon, who had received high praises for successfully and miraculously ditching the plane without fatalities, was also a convicted trafficker following a 2009 conviction for conspiracy to supply an illegal substance to the US. His flying permit had also been revoked for life by US authorities.
Local police and officials say that Jonathan Gardiner’s name popped up on its wanted list after the rescue, 80 miles off the Florida coast. Police say he had been carrying a bag with $30,000 in an envelope with the name of a prominent Bahamian politician on it.
His accidental arrest has sparked calls for a thorough probe into international drug trafficking in the mini archipelago, especially because of long held suspicions that some of the alleged traffickers are linked to senior politicians.
Local media outlets say that the plane was chartered by lawmaker Kingsley Smith, the representative for West Grand Bahama, to allow governing party supporters to make it on time to vote on election day. Smith has not been named to any cabinet or senior government office since the elections.
The recently reelected administration of Prime Minister Phillip Davis has said that it is reviewing the matter and the law will be allowed to take its course.
“We are a country governed by the rule of law, just as our neighbor to the north and our neighbors in the south. If somebody is found to have transgressed the law, the law applies to them equally regardless of who you are,” Attorney General Wayne Munroe told reporters, according to the Nassau Guardian. “It is a form of sin. It is a crime. The measure of a country is how you deal with it. The record of The Bahamas will show that we subject everyone to trial regardless of who you are, even if you are a sitting member of parliament of the government,” he said. MP Smith has declined to speak with reporters, saying he will do so in due course.
As expected, the main opposition Free National Movement (FNM) is demanding a full, official probe into the arrest of the businessman and his alleged connections to government functionaries.
“They have sullied the reputation of this country and its people. The only solution to this would be a fulsome investigation at the level of a commission of inquiry. That commission of inquiry ought to go back as far as the investigation into the Royal Bahamas Police Force, the situation in the Southern District of New York. Let us know whether there is any truth to this,” Munroe said.
