QC says client being prosecuted to satisfy international bodies

“A man from the Bayland” on trial for money laundering is being served up as a sacrifice to appease international agencies, his attorney argued on Thursday.

“I want to suggest to you that is a possible reason as to why Marlon is here,” Ralph Thorne QC told jurors while delivering closing arguments in the trial of his client, Marlon Hosea Carrington.

Carrington, of Phillips Road, The Pine, St Michael, is accused of transacting $57 000, proceeds of crime, on December 7, 2009.

He is also charged with engaging in money laundering by having $49 941 and US$36, being the proceeds of crime, in his possession on October 31, 2012.

Thorne noted that the point that Barbados could not be seen as a country that condoned money laundering or run the risk of being blacklisted by international agencies was raised by Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Alliston Seale during his closing arguments.

“You charge Marlon Carrington for money laundering because you want your country to avoid blacklisting,” Thorne said. “We don’t wish to be blacklisted, so we hold a man to satisfy the international agencies that we are doing work. The United States sneezing and we playing that we down here not blowing our nose.”

The QC maintained that the prosecution’s case was weak as they had failed to produce any evidence that pointed to Carrington being involved in illegal activity.

He said that there was “nothing of substance” which highlighted the source of Carrington’s funds to be illegitimate.

In describing the prosecution’s case as a “case of nothing”, he reminded the jurors it was not a court of belief but rather a court of law.

Thorne argued that the “system” had socially and financially profiled Carrington simply because he was a young man living in the Pine.

The senior attorney declared: “That man in the dock has been stereotyped. He has been the victim of a stereotype…. The system gave him a financial profile and that financial profile is connected to a social profile. The financial profile is related to what kind of work you do, it must be related to where you live; a man from the Bayland is not expected to be a millionaire.

“I suggest to you that the Financial Crimes Intelligence Unit financially profiled and socially profiled that young man and came to a conclusion and is asking you to come to the conclusion that a man from the Pine cannot own cars, cannot pay thousands of dollars, he cannot own any business.”

The trial is being presided over by Justice Laurie-Ann Smith-Bovell.