About 30 ORAL cases ready for prosecution – Deputy AG

The Attorney General’s Office has identified about 30 cases under the Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) initiative for prosecution, with between five and 10 already at advanced stages before the courts. The Deputy Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Dr Justice Srem-Sai, said another batch of cases would be filed before the start of the new legal year in October. Dr Srem-Sai said the cases were selected after investigators completed a review of ORAL dockets submitted to the Attorney General’s Office.

“When we analysed the report, I think we had about 30 cases that we thought were prosecutable,” he said. He explained that some of the cases, between five and 10, had already been filed and were progressing through the courts. Dr Srem-Sai said prosecutors would file another batch of ORAL cases during the legal vacation before the courts resume sittings for the new legal year.

But we are going to start with them, either during the vacation, the legal vacation; we are going to start new cases,” he said. He said the Attorney General’s Office would continue prosecuting ORAL-related cases where the available evidence met the legal threshold. “We will continue what we have done.

We are going to continue prosecuting. As far as the ORAL is concerned, we are going to do it,” he said. Although he declined to disclose the identities of the next persons to be prosecuted, Dr Srem-Sai said more cases would soon be filed.

“There will be some interesting cases coming soon,” he said. He said decisions on which cases to prosecute were based solely on the available evidence and not on the profile of suspects or the level of public interest. “When we work, we don’t actually focus on which one is big or which one is that.

We focus on which one is prosecutable,” he said. On the SkyTrain case, Dr Srem-Sai said the prosecution had closed its case and was awaiting the next stage of the trial after the accused persons failed to file their witness statements within the period set by the court. “SkyTrain, we have closed our case.