ST JOHN’S, Antigua – The former head of the Cancer Centre of the Eastern Caribbean Dr Arthur Porter has filed complaints with two leading international agencies alleging that his rights are being abused.
Porter’s lawyer Ricardo Bilonick told the United Nations and the Organisation of American States that Ottawa is violating Porter’s rights by trying to extradite him back to Canada to face charges of money laundering and conspiracy.
Bilonick said Canada is playing a very dirty game and, desperate to get his client home, is bending every rule. The attorney-at-law labelled it “persecution” rather than prosecution.
He also claimed that Porter’s wife, Pamela Mattock Porter, is being held hostage in a Montreal detention centre as a way of forcing her husband to agree to return to Canada to face charges.
Mattock-Porter, who was arrested as the same time and on the same charges as her husband, agreed to return to Canada in June and was denied bail later that month by a Quebec Court. She is appealing that decision and is due back in court on July 30.
Bilonick said if he were Porter, he would have “spilled the beans by now.” The lawyer was speaking from Panama, where Dr Porter, who was arrested on May 26, remains in custody.
In March, after Canadian authorities issued an arrest warrant for him, the medical practitioner stepped down as chairman of the multimillion-dollar project underway in Antigua.
Dr Conville Brown, a colleague of Porter’s, was appointed the new chairman on his suggestion.
Porter, 57, who is battling cancer, is the former head of the McGill University Health Centre and of the Security Intelligence Review Committee. The alleged conspiracy involved millions of dollars in public money earmarked for a $1.3 billion super hospital project.
According to the indictment, the fraud took place between July 2009 and December 2012, in Montreal and in a foreign country.
Dr Porter faces multiple charges including: fraud, conspiracy to commit government fraud, abuse of trust, secret commissions and laundering the proceeds of a crime.
