Bhms: Lyrics and schemes, lyrics and schemes

Despite an announced intention by the president of a missing drugs panel to conduct the hearings "under the noonday sun of public observation and scrutiny," a government lawyer asked that the evidence of Royal Bahamas Defence Force Commodore Davy Rolle be given in private.

Waxing poetic at last Monday's official launch of the Commission of Inquiry into confiscated drugs from the vessel Lorequin that apparently disappeared in transit to the RBDF Coral Harbour base in June 1992, presiding jurist Stanley Moore said, in part: "Transparency is one of the pleasant fragrances perfuming the garden of Bahamian democracy. May its jasmine bouquet surround these hearings with her incense, and may these hearings proceed under the noonday sun of public observation and scrutiny.

"For it is only thus illumined, that we can discover the clear truth which we seek in this inquiry," he said, in the face of suggestions of a cover-up during an initial inquiry into the matter almost 12 years ago.
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Yesterday, however, in closed court, lawyer Gavin Gaskin, of the Attorney General's Office, asked that Commodore Rolle, the initial witness to be called, be allowed to testify 'in camera', as due to the "sensitivity" of his testimony, thought it best to have his evidence be given in the president's private chamber.

Amazing how much less poetic is the request to remove the illumination of "the noonday sun of public observation and scrutiny." Quacks and invalids, all.