ST. JOHN’S Antigua (WiredJA) – Former Finance Minister Harold Lovell has launched a blistering counterattack against Prime Minister Gaston Browne, dismissing recent allegations connecting him to the Odebrecht scandal as a calculated diversion from the administration’s current troubles.
“The insinuations made by Prime Minister Gaston Browne about me in relation to the Odebrecht Scandal prompts me to question the timing of his remarks and the release of his alleged dossier on the subject,” Lovell stated in a strongly worded press release.
Lovell pointed out that the Odebrecht matter has lingered in the public consciousness for nearly a decade, with Browne himself implicated in 2016 when a Brazilian newspaper alleged he accepted bribes to suppress information about Meinl Bank operations.
“With Antigua and Barbuda at the centre of the controversy, with Meinl Bank alleged to be the locus of illicit worldwide payments, and with Browne himself implicated, why has he never conducted an investigation to clear his name or the country’s image – even after I called for a public inquiry?” Lovell questioned.
The former minister challenged Browne’s decade-long silence on the matter, suggesting the Prime Minister has squandered ample opportunity to address these allegations during his tenure.
Setting the record straight, Lovell detailed his professional involvement as an attorney representing clients in a civil matter related to the liquidation of the Antigua Overseas Bank in late 2014. This referral, he emphasized, came through Luis Franca, with then Ambassador Casroy James as the only other person present at their Miami meeting on December 19, 2014.
“My six-month contract with the persons referred by Franca had nothing to do with Odebrecht or Meinl Bank or the receipt of any funds other than my invoice for legal services,” Lovell insisted, adding that he had previously provided documentary evidence and passport records to prove he wasn’t even in the United States during the alleged “bribery meeting” in August 2015.
Lovell highlighted his transparency on the matter, noting he had addressed these accusations comprehensively in the Senate in February 2017 and at a subsequent press conference where he produced documentation proving there were “no secret transactions.” His legal work, he maintained, was conducted openly, using his own letterhead in correspondence with regulatory authorities and other lawyers.
These explanations weren’t merely parliamentary posturing – Lovell successfully defended his reputation in 2021 when he sued one Donna Chaia for making similar allegations, resulting in a public retraction and apology.
The former minister categorically denied any wrongdoing: “I declare, again, that I had nothing to do with the Odebrecht Bribery Scandal. I held no meetings with the company’s officials. I solicited no funds from the company on behalf of myself or my Party and received none.”
Characterizing the Prime Minister’s newest accusation – that Lovell had invoked Browne’s name to solicit funds from Odebrecht – as “ludicrous,” the former minister posed a rhetorical question: “Would Casroy James and Luis Franca, both diplomats in his administration in 2015, have allowed me to misrepresent their boss in an effort to obtain funding for the Opposition Party?”
Lovell didn’t mince words about what he sees as the true motivation behind the Prime Minister’s allegations: “Gaston Browne’s latest story is a desperate attempt to smear my name and to distract the public from his own failures and controversies, particularly those swamping him now, with neither comfort nor succor from his colleagues.”
While acknowledging that parliamentary privilege shields Browne from legal consequences for his statements, Lovell concluded with a pointed rebuke: “Using the cloak of Parliament to spread lies is a gross abuse of power and an insult to the intelligence of the Antiguan and Barbudan people.”
