Court: banks must unfreeze Caribsports assets

And in what must have been a very busy day for U.D.P. leader Dean Barrow–this time in his role as attorney–he today informed News 5 that the Supreme Court has ruled in favour of his client, Caribsports Book and Casino Ltd., and ordered three banks to unfreeze almost five million U.S. dollars that they had been told to hold in limbo by the government. According to Barrow, the ruling was made on narrow grounds, on the basis that in order to freeze assets the law requires evidence that a criminal prosecution, either in the U.S. or Belize, is imminent. Since the U.S. government’s affidavit could not say when such charges would be filed, the freeze could not stand. It is expected, however, that the U.S. Department of Justice will continue to target the Internet gambling operator and may in the future request the same freezing of accounts.