Prosser lawyer about to file contempt charges

In an update to the controversy surrounding the annual general meeting of Belize Telecommunications Limited last Monday, this afternoon attorney Lionel Welch confirmed that he has spent much of the past week preparing to file contempt of court charges against the company’s board. According to Welch, all that remains are signatures on two affidavits … presumably from senior counsel Lois Young-Barrow and court bailiff Charles Humes. Young Barrow has maintained that she notified B.T.L. chairman Keith Arnold of a Supreme Court injunction during the meeting while Humes was barred by security personnel from entering the meeting room in order to serve the members with the official document. In its only public response to the public outcry against the board’s actions, the telecommunications company claims that because the injunction was not served at the corporate headquarters before five on Monday, it did not take effect until Tuesday. Their position has been criticized by a long list of public officials and legal authorities as unethical, if not illegal. Welch, the local lawyer for American investor Jeffrey Prosser, petitioned and was granted an injunction against the meeting on the basis that his client was not invited to the event. Prosser has reasserted his right to appoint two directors to the B.T.L. board following another Supreme Court ruling that determined that the two statutory instruments that made him lose control of the company were in fact unconstitutional. In news that is unrelated but coincidental B.T.L. majority owner, Michael Ashcroft, has been in the British media this week. It seems that Lord Ashcroft and several other Conservative Party peers were questioned by Scotland Yard as part of an investigation into the awarding of Honours in exchange for political contributions. The probe of the Tories follows earlier and stronger accusations against the Labour Party. Ashcroft, Deputy Treasurer of the Conservative Party, was one of thirteen major supporters who loaned the Party a total of sixteen million pounds prior to the last election.