Connai sentenced

Australian “financing con

sultant” Peter Swanson was early last month sentenced by the Vanuatu Supreme Court to 18 months jail and ordered to pay some 10 mil lion vatu (SUSB2,GOO) in prosecution fees. He was the “central character” in a letters of guarantee” scam that could have left the country bankrupt.

Swanson was arrested in June last year, days before a damning ombudsman report on the “letters of guarantee”. The scheme, prosecution told the Court earlier, purport ed to raise SUS2SO million in a few months by issuing 10 letters of guarantee (effec tively lOUs) of SUSIO million each, totalling some SUSIOO million (twice this island state’s budget).

The ombudsman’s report also revealed the letters had been signed by then Prime Minister Maxime Carlot, his finance minis ter Barak Sope, his first secretary George Borugu and the Reserve Bank Governor Samson Ngwele. The four were not prose cuted. Prosecutor Baxter-Wright told Court there was no suggestion the local leaders were co-offenders. “We suggest they were victims”, he said, answering a defence claim suggesting Swanson, being the only one prosecuted, was a scapegoat. “The rea son why (Swanson) is the only one in the dock is very clear: we say it was he who was central, instrumental to this whole scheme.” He added three other foreign accomplices were not prosecuted here because “they always stayed out of (Vanuatu’s) jurisdiction”. Throughout the enquiry, Swanson refused to give details on his relation to the four top officials and their possible role in the scheme. After it was unveiled, the scheme was swiftly halt ed, and the originals of the letters were finally retrieved in London and brought back here with the help of Scotland Yard and Interpol. But the scandal indirectly caused Carlot and his cabinet’s downfall in a motion of no confidence in September last year. Swanson initially spent six weeks in Port Vila’s jail and was then released after paying a SUSB2,OOO. . Last October, an earlier Supreme Court ruling found Swanson guilty of seven charges including forgery, false statements to indice people to invest and dealing in securities without a licence, but no sen tence was pronounced then. ■