GOVERNMENT prosecutors yesterday withdrew the five-year-old criminal case against controversial eastern Kingston businessman Danhai Williams and his six co-accused, who were charged with fraud in the $450-million National Housing Development Corporation/Operation Pride scandal in 2003.

Yesterday, Senior Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Lisa Palmer told Resident Magistrate Georgianna Fraser that the Crown would be entering a conditional nolle prosequi order against the seven, under which the case was to be discontinued, but which also gave the Crown the option of recalling the matter at any time in the future.

“The nolle prosequi is entered in accordance with Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Amendment Act. It is a statement by the director of public prosecutions of her intention to discontinue the matter at this time,” Palmer said.

“The matter can, however be [revisited] at any time should the witnesses Lloyd McLean and Gerald Tobias become available,” she told RM Fraser in the Half-Way-Tree Criminal Court.

The trial had been stalled twice earlier this month due to the unavailability of McLean and Tobias, who were both employed to the NHDC, and allegedly signed off on NHDC/Operation PRIDE projects.

Yesterday’s hearing of the matter was scheduled as the final date for the prosecution to deliver the two witnesses or take other courses of action in the matter.

The prosecution’s withdrawal did not, however, go down well with members of the defence team, who described the action as breaching the constitutional rights of the accused.

“.We are alarmed at the way in which this matter has been dealt with after a period of five years. No citizen of this country deserves to be waiting for trial for a five-year period when even the material that forms the basis of the case has undergone dramatic change and in some cases has disappeared completely.”

“The constitutional rights of all of these persons have been breached by having this matter hanging over their heads and continue to hang till such time as the DPP decides to bring it back,” attorney-at-law Valerie Neita-Robertson told the Observer yesterday.

Neita-Robertson was also critical of the manner in which the nolle prosequi was delivered.

“I notice also that in giving the nolle prosequi the senior deputy director outlined that this would not be the end of the matter, we think it was deliberately done for the media so that those people in the media who have been asking for this matter to be tried are now to be made satisfied. I am completely upset about matters of this nature being tried in the media because I do not feel that any citizen of this country can receive a fair trial when this is done,” Neita-Robertson said.

A clean-shaven Williams, who was dressed in a white suit with a black shirt, was happy with yesterday’s outcome.

“I was coming here for justice, and we knew that this was the only result, so we are happy,” he told the Observer. “We wanted the matter to be over and finished with completely so we are not happy about that, but we are happy still.”

Williams, after leaving the court, was greeted by a large group of supporters who shouted and cheered at news of the withdrawal of the matter.