The Supreme Court hearing which sought to bring light to conditions under which Dutch oil-lifting company Trafigura Beheer made a $31-million donation to the People’s National Party (PNP) in September 2006 ended on Thursday with an annoyed Robert Pickersgill denying knowledge of most of the issues put to him, except that the money was returned by a sympathetic donor.

For 16 years authorities in the Kingdom of the Netherlands had been trying to have five senior members of the PNP give evidence about the transactions in open court. The practice of Dutch companies donating to political parties is forbidden in the Netherlands.

On Thursday, Pickersgill, who was chairman of the PNP at the time of the Trafigura imbroglio, told the court that the money was returned upon instructions from then prime minister and PNP President Portia Simpson Miller after a misunderstanding arose regarding the reason for the payment.

Asked what the misunderstanding was, Pickersgill said, “It came about on the basis that the Opposition Leader [Bruce Golding at the time] made [a statement] in Parliament which was false. It gave rise to quite a discussion and debate that had no basis in proof so there was quite some misunderstanding.”

He said he wrote a letter to Trafigura stating, “Reference was made to two statements issued by your company last October regarding a contribution made to us through CCOC Association, a bank account held by a former officer of the party. The contribution was, at all times, received as a donation to our campaign funds but a misunderstanding has developed concerning it. In light of that misunderstanding, the party took the decision to return the funds.”

At the time the PNP had said the money was a donation, but Trafigura said it was payment on a commercial transaction.

On Thursday, Pickersgill said he knew nothing about CCOC Association, which stands for Colin Campbell Our Candidate. He was also unable to speak about SW Services and its operations. SW Services was created in 2006 to finance the PNP’s campaign for the 2007 General Election.

After the end of the hearing the Jamaica Observer spoke with attorney Deborah Martin, who represented Phillip Paulwell, and Queen’s Counsel KD Knight, who represented Simpson Miller who was excused from giving evidence in the matter.

“Every single one of them [PNP witnesses] met with Dutch investigators in an attorney’s office. What we were going through was something that caused confusion. Enough time has passed and we are relieved it is at an end, and we are happy that there is now an opportunity to explain what in fact transpired. The public should understand that the delay was never on account of an unwillingness to explain,” Martin said.

“We really had concerns about the procedure. This is the only instance we are aware of where persons have given information in the form of a statement during an investigation in public. There is no other example you will find like this where questions are being asked in court at the investigatory stage in public. We couldn’t understand how,” she said.

According to Knight, Golding made misleading assertions about the donation and for that history will be unkind to him.

“There was never an attempt by the then leader of Opposition to ask the Jamaican police to investigate anything connected to this matter. That, from the beginning, should have sent a message which is and was eventually said in court, that these personalities were never under investigation in Jamaica for having committed an offence in Jamaica against the laws of Jamaica.

“There was never any attempt to have those charged with the responsibility of investigating corruption become involved, because there was no corruption. The way in which he made his presentation sent a clear message to the public that the People’s National Party had done a criminal wrong and people bought into it. History is likely to deal with him in a very unkind way because of the Manatt affair and because of the Trafigura affair. History, regrettably, will be unkind to him.”

The Manatt affair to which Knight referred rocked the JLP Government in 2010 when it emerged that operatives of the party had retained American law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips to help lobby Washington in relation to the United States’s extradition request for Tivoli Gardens strongman Christopher “Dudus” Coke.