Lawyer argues Watson conviction ‘politically expedient’

(CNS): Andrew Trollope KC told the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal on Thursday that the crown’s case against Canover Watson was directly connected to and influenced by the government’s goal to get the Cayman Islands removed from the Financial Action Task Force’s grey list and the conviction is unsafe. The UK-based lawyer argued that the case was “politically helpful and expedient”. He said the junior prosecutor in the case and the Anti-Corruption Commission investigator were conflicted as they were also involved in the campaign to remove this jurisdiction from that list.

In October 2022, Watson, a CIFA executive at the time of the offences, was convicted on multiple charges in connection with an invoicing scam. Prosecutors argued that he dishonestly took over US$1.5 million from the regional football body CONCACAF for sports goods that were never supplied. He is currently serving an eight-year prison term.

Watson was tried alongside Bruce Blake, a former lawyer with Maples and Calder who was also a CIFA executive. He was found guilty of false accounting and, like Watson, has appealed the conviction.

Trollope, arguing on several grounds, began by pointing out that CONCACAF had never reported a crime in relation to the allegations and, to this day, has still not filed a complaint. He said that the late disclosure of thousands of emails that supported Watson’s defence was not taken into consideration by the court in the trial.

He said the judge in the case, Chief Justice Margaret Ramsay-Hale, failed to sum up Watson’s evidence in her directions to the jury, even though the former local businessman and community leader had taken the stand in his own defence for several days.

Trollope argued that there was a question mark over whether there really was a crime or dishonesty in this case. He stressed that the prosecution came about because of issues with an audit of CIFA in which the FATF accountants raised a red flag over the conversion of a loan to a sponsorship deal and not because CONCACAF reported any theft.

He said the case was connected to the desperate efforts by the CIG to get off the FATF grey list. Noting the public statements about the CONCACAF case and its importance in achieving that left the “bystander with the perception” that the case against Watson was biased. He argued that the authorities made it clear that a successful prosecution and appropriately lengthy sentence would achieve that goal.

The lawyer said that, according to documentation, the eight-year sentence had been seen by the authorities as suitable enough to convince the FATF that Cayman was compliant with their requirement that it prosecute and punish money laundering.

In his later arguments against the sentence, he maintained that, when compared to crimes of a similar nature, it was far too long. He said the judge’s decision to have some of the sentences for the separate convictions run consecutively pushed up the total time Watson should serve to around double what would have been fair.

The appeal court judges asked if he was implying there was no crime, regardless of the motivation. In response, the lawyer said there were questions around whether or not the crown had actually established any dishonesty on Watson’s part, especially given his client’s evidence, which he implied had been overlooked. Trollope pointed out that Watson had not been charged with theft but secret commissions — a charge that had confused the jury.

Meanwhile, Cairns Nelson KC, who represented Blake during the trial and at the appeal, said his client, who has now served his time, had done nothing dishonest and gained nothing from the crime he was convicted of committing.

Following submissions from Eloise Marshall KC, who represented the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and defended the crown’s case and the convictions of both men, the appeal court said that they would take some time to consider the appeal and deliver their judgment in due course.