Phipps, PNP lawyers butt heads over secret documents
Published:Thursday | February 3, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer
Two of the four secret memoranda of understanding being featured in the Dudus-Manatt commission of enquiry fuelled fireworks yesterday when lawyers representing the People's National Party (PNP) characterised them as a smokescreen and "red herring".
"I have read the documents and they are much ado about nothing," declared attorney K.D. Knight, Queen's Counsel (QC).
"Red herring," chimed in A.J. Nicholson, another of the senior attorneys for the PNP.
Patrick Atkinson, another attorney for the opposition party, described the documents as a massive waste of time designed for pure propaganda effort.
Deeper controversy
Hugh Small, the attorney representing Prime Minister Bruce Golding, took objection to the characterisation.
"To say it's a red herring that is being raised in the pursuit of propaganda objective is unworthy of the QC," Small declared.
The highly classified mystery documents were plunged deeper into controversy later in the sitting as the attorneys for the PNP accused the Jamaica Labour Party of leaking them to its attorney Frank Phipps.
Phipps was notably precise in making reference to paragraphs in the documents during his cross-examination of Jeremy Taylor, the head of the Extradition Unit in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Demand for documents
"Mr Chairman, does Mr Phipps has a copy of this document? We need to find out if he has a copy and why he has a copy," asserted Atkinson. "The way his questions are being asked suggest that he has a copy of this document; if he has one, then we might as well all get a copy."
Replied Phipps: "It is the first in my experience anybody is asking to see counsel's brief; that is totally prohibited."
Atkinson retorted: "I am not interested in his brief, I am interested in whether he has a copy of a document which you proscribed must not be copied and circulated."
Asked by Commission Chairman Emil George whether he had a copy, Phipps declared, "I do not propose to tell anyone what is in my brief."