PHILISBURG – The arrest of Member of Parliament and leader of the United Democrats Theo Heyliger by the anti-orruption task force TBO has shocked quite a few people but it cannot have surprised anybody – not even Heyliger himself who said in March of last year when he was working as formateur on the composition of a new government that the elections on February 26, 2018, were the last ones he would participate in.
[Publisher’s note: In this article, StMaartenNews.com recaps for its readers the whole sordid history dating back before 10-10-10 leading up the culmination with the arrest on Tuesday, February 19, 2019, of St. Maarten’s most popular politician, Theo Heyliger.]
There have always been stories about Heyliger’s activities – “It is part of my life,” he once said – but in the course of the current decade those stories gave the prosecutor’s office more and more reason to take a closer look at St. Maarten’s most popular politician.
The first crack in Heyliger’s armor arrived with the court case against several police officers and his uncle Roy for election fraud during the run-up to the 2010 elections. The police officers had gone to the office of the United People’s party (the predecessor of United Democrats) where they found a willing ear with Roy – cash in exchange for their vote.
But while the uncle and the police officers were dragged into court, the prosecutor’s office opted not to prosecute the man who was ultimately responsible for buying those votes – Theo Heyliger. This inspired Judge Koen Luijks in August 2014 to a spectacular decision. He declared the case inadmissible because the prosecution has failed to prosecute the UP-leader. On appeal, this decision was overturned, though Heyliger was still not prosecuted for this case of election fraud.
One detail of the 2010 election campaign stands out. During the last UP-rally on the grounds of the never realized ring road Gerrit Schotte was a prominent guest. Schotte, leader of the MFK and Curacao’s first prime minister, is currently serving a 3-year prison sentence for bribery in Willemstad. Schotte also maintained close ties with casino owner Francesco Corallo – but that is another story.
In November 2014, the Today newspaper published a story based on court documents that showed how Heyliger attempted to force Bobby’s Marine owner Bobby Velasquez to accept a bogus consultancy contract that would send $0.25 to the Tortola-based offshore company Coalpot Inc. for every cruise passenger that used Velasquez’ Tender Services to travel from the port to town. Velasquez refused to go along.
Velasquez’ attorney Jairo Bloem claimed in court that he had video footage showing how Heyliger hand-delivered the fake consultancy contract as well as banking details to Velasquez.
In August 2018, the Common Court of Justice gave the prosecutor’s office the green light to prosecute Heyliger in the so-called Catfish-investigation. The allegation is that Heyliger attempted to bribe former MP Romain Laville with cash to the tune of $350,000 and promises of a ministerial post in a new government if he gave up his seat in parliament.
The Catfish-case is scheduled to go to court before the summer.
And there is still worse to come. In November of last year, the charges against Ronald Maasdam became public. Maasdam, who worked as a technical advisor to Heyliger in the late nineties, allegedly paid Heyliger $300,000 in bribes in 2011 through two different companies – Advanced Consultech SA ($40,000) and Caribbean Advice and Consultancy Ltd. (($260,000).
According to the prosecutor’s office these bribes aimed to obtain government contracts for dredging company Devcon TCI Ltd. and two entities of the Dutch construction company Volker Stevin. One of these companies, Volker Stevin Caribbean NV, later obtained the contract to build the causeway across the Simpson Bay Lagoon.
While Heyligers’ name already surfaced in this investigation in November of last year – and it must be assumed that the prosecutor’s office was aware of it way before that – he was only arrested on Tuesday morning, February 19, 2019.
Heyliger’s wife Grisha Marten has called her husband’s arrest “a stab in the back” in a public statement. Marten criticized the decision to detain Heyliger at the police station – most likely in the same cell that was home to casino owner Francesco Corallo for so long that the European Court of Human Rights condemned this situation as “inhumane.”
Marten’s statement suggests that she would have preferred detention at the Pointe Blanche prison.
It should also be noted that the prosecution accused Maasdam of bribing several civil servants in St. Maarten and that Heyliger – as Commissioner of Public Works – has worked together for a long time with the current head of Infrastructure Management at the VROMI-department, Claudius Buncamper who has been sentenced for tax fraud.
In parliament, politicians are circling the wagons; it seems that even the opposition considers Heyliger as one of their own. USp-MP Rolando Brison for instance, openly wondered why the prosecutor’s office had not done anything to intervene with the troubled insurance company ENNIA. “Were they too busy locking up locals?” Brison said.
In another meeting, UD-MP Franklin Meyers downplayed the conviction of Claudius Buncamper, saying that the family had suffered for eight years from negative publicity while seven of the eight accusations against them did not hold up in court.
Various politicians have in the recent past also called for an investigation into the public prosecutor’s office. In November Heyliger supported a call by MP Frans Richardson for a parliamentary inquiry into the justice system. Richardson produced a letter – that soon turned out to be a clumsy forgery – to support his claim that officers of the anti corruption task force had stolen jewelry from the home of Francesco Corallo. Since November, nothing more has been heard about this call for an inquiry.
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