Former Cabinet minister Robert Montague has described as misleading, an Integrity Commission report into the issuing of firearm licences that accused him of granting permits to six individuals with “criminal antecedents”.

The six applicants, the Integrity Commission said in its report released early last month, had been denied permits by the Firearm Licensing Authority (FLA) board. However, they appealed the decision and got approval during the time Montague served as national security minister from February 2016 to February 2018.

“The report is misleading as it suggests that these six persons were criminal convicts. This is not so. Five of the six persons were never convicted of a criminal offence and the allegations of criminality were weak, if not wholly unsubstantiated,” Montague states in an article published in the Agenda section of today’s Sunday Observer.

“In the only case noted where there were previous convictions, there was a subsequent expungement. The offences occurred in the 1980s. The effect of expungement in law is that the criminal conviction is erased from one’s record and treated as having never occurred. Expungement is effected by order of the court and allows for persons considered to have been rehabilitated to get a second chance in life without the prejudice and stigma of being a convict,” he stated.

“Based solely on this Integrity Commission report completed in January 2020 and published in March 2022, I have summarised the six cases considered as points of concern,” added Montague who resigned as minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation on March 12, four days after the report was tabled in Parliament and later released to the media.

In his summary, Montague stated that in the first case the applicant was accused of lotto scamming. However, the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) reported that it had no confirmation on allegations against the person and, as such all cases against the person were “dismissed by the courts, as no evidence was presented”.

The second applicant was accused of insurance fraud, but the NIB has no adverse traces and no evidence that the allegations are true.

In the third case the applicant, he said, was accused of abusing women and was charged with discharging a firearm in a public place. However, no evidence nor case was brought in relation to the abuse of women and the person was not charged. Subsequently, the case was dismissed by the court.

Montague said that the fourth case was that of a lost firearm, resulting in the applicant being charged and fined. The police, he said, have no record of conviction on file and the FLA investigator recommended that the firearm be returned to citizen.

The fifth applicant, Montague said, had his record expunged by the court in 2002. Additionally, the Transactional Crimes and Narcotics Division had no adverse trace against the individual, neither did the NIB in two reports. Also, the Criminal Investigation Branch has “no record of conviction”.

The sixth applicant is a former police officer who was recommended by the FLA investigator for a shotgun. The CIB has no adverse traces of the person, Montague stated.

He said that the report he received “via the parliamentary link is stamped draft, hence it is my conclusion that the report is incomplete”.

Montague also outlined a number of reforms that, he said, were undertaken while he was minister in 2017 “to prevent the kind of errors and deficiencies flagged in the commission’s report” which, he pointed out, suggested no wrongdoing on his part nor did it make any legal recommendations against him.

He said that public discussions on the report have been affected by inaccuracies and factual errors in relation to the administrative and legal processes and his role and conduct as minister of national security.

“These matters need to be corrected for us to facilitate discussion and debate based on accurate information and opinions influenced by facts, not fiction,” Montague argued.

The Integrity Commission report had also accused Peter Bunting, who was national security minister in the last People’s National Party Government, of approving firearm licences to two individuals with criminal traces.

However, in his response, Bunting, who has refused to bend to calls for his resignation, said that almost all of the irregularities highlighted in the special report “happened after my time as the responsible minister”, and argued that the two cases involving him were done by the book.

“One case involved a person who had been charged 10 years earlier with cocaine-related offences while they were a student in Florida, and whose record was subsequently expunged,” he said, adding that it is important to note that when a criminal record is expunged, “the law requires that that person must be treated as if the crime had not occurred”.

He said that the second case involved a man who had been accused of molesting his wife’s relative. However, a formal report was never made to law enforcers and thus the accused was never convicted of a crime. He added that in regard to two assault charges laid against the same individual dating back to the 90s, one was dismissed and a no order made in the other.