Veteran attorney KD Knight, obviously annoyed that questions being posed to People’s National Party (PNP) witnesses in the Trafigura case were being replicated, described the mater as a “rubbish proceeding” as the long-awaited hearing got under way in the Supreme Court, downtown Kingston, on Monday.

Knight, who is representing former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, made the comment after questions were posed to Norton Hinds and former Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell — two of the five people scheduled to give evidence this week — about their knowledge and participation in a 2006 three-part transfer of $31 million to a FirstCaribbean International Bank account with the name Colin Campbell Our Candidate (CCOC) by Dutch oil-lifting firm Trafigura Beheer.

Under oath, Hinds, a self-employed supporter of the PNP, told the court that CCOC was formed by a group of PNP supporters, including himself, to raise campaign funds for Colin Campbell, who at the time was a Cabinet minister and PNP general secretary.

Hinds said CCOC was not registered with the Companies Office of Jamaica.

It was revealed in court Monday that the bank account associated with CCOC was opened on January 28, 1991. Hinds explained that he had access to the account up to 1994 and was adamant that he had no knowledge of its status after that period.

In relation to the other questions — including the reasons the transfers of $10,684,431.05 and $10,161,516.72 were made on September 6, 2006, and $10,420,911.62 on September 12, 2006 — Hinds told the court that he did not know.

Similar questions were put to Paulwell, but he also denied knowledge and said he first learned of CCOC when the issue was raised by former Prime Minister Bruce Golding in 2006.

After Paulwell repeatedly told the court that he had no knowledge of CCOC prior to the revelation by Golding, or about CCOC’s relationship with Trafigura, Knight questioned the purpose of certain elements of the hearing.

“Here is a situation where a person in the witness box is asked a question that he knew nothing about and then he is shown a document relating to the question and the answer given is that, ‘I know nothing about it,’ ” Knight said.

“This is really about admissibility of the evidence. If they don’t have a statement, they are not witnesses. They are potential witnesses. If they say, ‘No, I am not giving a statement,’ that is the end of the matter. This whole procedure is nonsense,” he said, adding that the court is “not a robot” but a “thinking creature”.

Paulwell told the court that he had no idea what CCOC meant prior to the issue being raised in 2006 by Golding. He said that he had no knowledge of the common interests of Trafigura and CCOC or why the money was paid. He also denied knowledge of how Trafigura got its contact with CCOC or who informed the Dutch company about the bank account to which it transferred the $31 million.

The Trafigura Affair, as it came to be known, was brought to public attention in October 2006 by then Opposition Leader Golding, who revealed that the firm, which traded oil for Jamaica on the international market, had donated $31 million to an account operated by Campbell just prior to the PNP’s annual conference that year.

Conflictingly, Trafigura Beheer said the money was part of a commercial agreement, while the PNP maintained that it was a donation to the party.

It is illegal under Dutch law for companies to make donations to political parties.

“They made the offer. They said that they know elections are imminent in Jamaica and they are intending to make a contribution,” Campbell told journalists at a news conference in October 2006 at PNP headquarters. He also said that CCOC stood for “nothing in particular”, and that the account was simply one the party used to deposit campaign finances.

However, the Jamaica Observer later found that CCOC meant Colin Campbell Our Candidate and was an association formed by a group of his supporters.

The resultant scandal cast a shroud over the party’s image and Campbell resigned as general secretary and from the Cabinet. A few days later, Simpson Miller reported that the money had been sent back.

The matter had been escalated to the Privy Council by PNP officials after the Court of Appeal, in 2017, dismissed an appeal against a 2011 Supreme Court ruling that Simpson Miller, as well as Paulwell, Robert Pickersgill, Campbell, and Hinds should testify in open court about the donation.

Campbell is expected to give evidence today. An appeal was made for Simpson Miller to be excused from the hearing due to a medical condition. The court will deliberate on that request this morning.

Later in the week, Pickersgill, a former long-serving PNP chairman, will take the stand via a secured video link.

The hearing is scheduled to resume today.