Letter from Minister of Justice to State Department

May 03, 2012 2:25 PM

WILLEMSTAD - Minister of Justice, Elmer Wilsoe (PS) sent a letter late April to the head of the American State Department and the Attorney General, requesting to lift the attachment on bank accounts of legal entities from Robby’s Lottery.

The letter, dated April 25th, was sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder.

Wilsoe didn’t wish to ‘comment on internal correspondence’ this morning. The letter had not been sent through the Office of the Attorney General but through the American consulate on Curaçao. The Office of the Attorney General apparently only received the letter yesterday for notification and doesn’t wish to offer further comment.
 
The Minister is free to make a request; he hadn’t given any instructions. It’s remarkable though that the Minister seems to interfere in the criminal investigation Bientu, in which lottery boss Robbie Dos Santos is suspected of fraud with lottery tickets, money laundering and tax evasion.
 
Dos Santos’ solicitors in America from lawyer’s office Williams & Connolly have meanwhile presented a petition, demanding the lifting of the attachment on the UBS-accounts from lottery boss Robbie dos Santos. It regards an amount of almost 30 million dollars. According to the lawyer’s office, the Public Prosecutor in Willemstad had produced insufficient justifications for the attachment. The American lawyers think the authorities on Curaçao with their request for attachment to the Public Prosecutor in the US had misled the latter and produced insufficient evidence for money laundering and fraud. The lawyers are now contesting the request for attachment granted earlier by a judge in America.
 
Wilsoe also made a request last year, namely to the local Attorney General Dick Piar. The Minister requested Piar to investigate the leaking out of confidential documents on the screening of the ministers.

(Amigoe)