The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

THE prosecution in Shane Gibson's trial officially submitted its revised indictment schedule Friday, intending to pursue only the 16 bribery charges against the former Labour Minister.

A May 4 case management secession was adjourned to allow the prosecution team the time it needed to list the particulars for each bribery charge it intends to pursue at trial.

Wayne Munroe, QC, one of the lawyers on Gibson's team, told The Tribune while the defence is happy to see the case finally move forward, it does have concerns with the timing of the prosecution's decision.

Mr Munroe disclosed that in addition to the revised indictment, the prosecution team also presented the defence with several new pieces of information it intends to depend on at trial; information he and his team would have to review and prepare for.

“There is a lot of information here,” he said. “And one would have thought that we would have been giving all of this a long time ago. They have now, helpfully given us the dates they say these things happened on, but If they had given us all of this earlier, we would have used all of the time that has passed to do our research.”

Mr Munroe added: “So now, we start from this date, looking at these dates they have presented and working it out. The troubling part about that is, if we had this information from the start, we could have already gone through it and see if there were other people we needed, to source up other information.”

Asked if the disclosure of new information could delay the pre-trial proceedings in any way, Mr Munroe said: “We will have to see. As we go through this stuff, we will see if we can get through it swiftly and prepare ourselves for what’s ahead.”

On August 3, Mr Gibson was arraigned in a Magistrate's Court on 36 bribery and extortion related charges: one count of misconduct in public office, 16 counts of bribery, two counts of conspiracy to commit bribery, two counts of conspiracy to commit extortion and 15 counts of extortion – all of these concerned with Jonathan Ash.

The number of bribery and extortion related charges were later decreased to 31, though the amount he is alleged to have solicited from Mr Ash remained the same.

Then just recently, the Crown announced its decision to drop all the extortion charges against the former Golden Gates MP, with the DPP stating at the time that the decision was for the Crown to devote a "singular and simplified focus" on Gibson's bribery charges.

About an hour after his initial arraignment, Justice Cheryl Grant-Thompson granted the former Golden Gates MP $40,000 bail with two sureties on the condition he does not reoffend and attends his trial.

She did not impose any travel restrictions on Mr Gibson, and neither was he required to surrender his travel documents or check into any police station.