AFTER 13 years in financial exile, former Eagle Group chairman Paul Chen-Young still fears he could be physically hurt if he returns to the island.

Chen-Young last week gave his testimony at the ongoing Finsac enquiry via videoconference from overseas but insisted that he did so, not because of a much-circulated story that he would be arrested if he returned to Jamaica, but because of fear that he could be harmed.

“I fear coming to Jamaica for my personal safety, because what has happened to me should not have happened,” Chen-Young told the Sunday Observer Friday in an exclusive interview via telephone from overseas.

“I don’t know what those who harbour feelings against me would do, and how far they are willing to go,” he declared.

Chen-Young said his concern even stopped him from attending the funeral of his father.

“One of the saddest things was that I could not come to my father’s funeral for fear of my safety,” he told the Sunday Observer.

“I love my country, I miss my people and the food,” he declared.

Chen-Young’s Eagle Group was taken over by the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (Finsac) in 1997, and a forensic audit initiated into the operations of the group.

The following year Chen-Young faced a $900-million lawsuit brought by Eagle Merchant Bank and Crown Eagle — two of the companies he founded.

He subsequently left the island.

Chen-Young has since repeatedly insisted that people connected to Finsac have made relentless efforts to discredit him and destroy his career.

According to Chen-Young, after the 1998 ruling by the court, the Jamaican Government pursued him in the US and forced him to shut down a company he had started there.

Contending that the $900-million Court ruling was excessive, he told the Sunday Observer that criminal charges were never brought against him in any of the three cases.

“When the claims were made it was $370 million, but when Justice Anderson made his award it was $900 million, and most of that was interest,” Chen-Young said.

He revealed that the first claim against him was a charge for breach of fiduciary duties for monies spent to refurbish Eagle’s Grenada Crescent office. “The original money was $65 million and after Justice Anderson ruled with interest that is now $245 million,” he said.

“I have always maintained that these expenditures had board approval and whatever interest I might have had were declared.”

The second claim was that there was a breach as chief executive in trading with IBM shares and the bank lost $5million.

“When we corrected it in court it was closer to $3.5 million,” Chen-Young said. “There was never any claim that I benefited from the transaction, I was acting in an executive capacity on behalf of the company with board approval, but nevertheless the court ruled against me and with interest that now amounts to US$10 million,” Chen-Young noted.

The third claim, Chen-Young said, was that some $700,000 was spent in a deal in which he had an interest, and Justice Anderson awarded $11 million.

“That was to do preliminary work on a property in St Ann called Domville with the intention of entering in a joint venture, but because I had an interest in the property I was held responsible,” Chen-Young said.

“My position has always been that these funds were to be used for a joint venture purpose with a Chinese health resort company and this was discussed and approved by the board,” he told the Sunday Observer.

Chen-Young’s appeal is still before the courts.

“I have no immediate plans to go to Jamaica,” he said Friday. “I have to see how the appeal turns out, then I will asses the situation at that time. I am 73 years old now, when the crisis came I was at my peak. For 13 years I have been under the gun.”