BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Lawyers representing the former senior executive of the Insurance Corporation of Barbados (ICBL), Alex Tasker, have filed an “urgent request” to the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), resulting in his being released from police custody here on Tuesday night.
The lawyers, including the Trinidad-based Senior Counsel, Douglas L Mendes, requested the CCJ to” hear further interventions” after it had ruled that Tasker could be extradited to the United States on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to launder money.
“That was agreed to and, as a result, all previous legal rulings were stayed pending the outcome of this latest urgent application. As a direct result, Mr. Tasker was released from police custody last night,” the police said.
Tasker had been taken into police custody here less than 24 hours after the CCJ ruling, but in a statement, the police confirmed that he had been released on Tuesday night.
He had been committed by Magistrate Ian Weekes on September 8, 2021, to surrender to the authorities of the United States to face the charges.
The CCJ had also discharged the interim orders granted on May 11, 2023, further staying the Order for Committal and restraining Barbados from embarking on any course of conduct which would result in the applicant’s surrender.
“In all the circumstances, we believe the applicant has not met the threshold requirements to succeed in applying for special leave. The application for special leave to appeal to this Court is therefore dismissed. Accordingly, the application for the appeal to be heard urgently is also dismissed,” the CCJ, Barbado’s highest Court, ruled.
“Additionally, there is no reason why the applicant should rely on the Magistrate’s Courts Act for a right of appeal when there is specific legislation dedicated to the management of extradition proceedings and which details a specific procedure for appeal in such proceedings.”
Tasker has been linked to the Donville Inniss cash-for-coverage scandal, which resulted in Innis, a former minister of industry in Barbados, in April 2021 being sentenced to two years in prison for his role in a scheme to launder bribe payments from the Barbados-based insurance company through bank accounts in New York.
Inniss, a US permanent resident who resided in Tampa, Florida, and Barbados, was convicted by a federal jury of two counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering on January 16, 2020.
According to the evidence presented at trial, in 2015 and 2016, Inniss took part in a scheme to launder into the United States approximately US$36,000 in bribes that he had received from high-level executives of the ICBL.
US federal authorities want the businessman to be tried for his alleged role in the money laundering scheme, with the prosecutors alleging that between August 2015 and April 2016, Tasker conspired with others to launder money in the US from outside the country in violation of US law.
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