Former Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister, Winston Williams
Former Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister Winston Williams has distanced himself from the John Ashe bribery case, after it was revealed that a former Minister of State from Antigua & Barbuda was involved in the scam.
“I wish to categorically state here and now that I am in absolutely no way connected or involved with that matter. I am not the individual that the claimant has spoken about and at a later date, I, too, will make a follow up statement on this matter,” Williams told OBSERVER media.
Williams served as Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister.
The allegations of the involvement of a minister of state here was detailed and signed by Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Jason P Alberts, in a newly filed criminal complaint.
The complaint, filed March 16, 2016, alleges that Julia “Vivi” Wang also known as Vivian, paid at least $500,000 in bribes to buy diplomatic positions with the government of Antigua & Barbuda for her husband and another man.
According to the document, Ashe directed Wang to pay the amount into an account in Trinidad & Tobago, which was placed in the name of a local company.
Investigators allegedly uncovered a chain of emails which they partially disclosed in the complaint. In one email dated April 1, 2013, Ashe is alleged to have sent a message from his official UN account to his personal email account, containing details of a bank account in Trinidad, which the complaint states appeared to be connected to “a publisher of educational materials.”
The following day, Wang emailed Ashe a wire transfer form indicating that she had authorised payment of US$500,000 to the Trinidad account.
It also stated that at some time in 2013, half a million US dollars was wired to bank accounts in the US, belonging to or affiliated with family members of the then Minister of State in the office of the Prime Minister of Antigua & Barbuda.
Additionally, another United Nations (UN) official, deeply involved with Ashe, was led to believe that “at least a portion of the money was meant to pay off one or more officials in Antigua, including the then Prime Minister.”
There are at least three ministers of state who served in the Prime Minister’s Office during Ashe’s tenure as General Assembly President from September 2013 to September 2014