The trial of former Progressive Liberal Party Senator Frank Smith continued yesterday with new evidence being introduced and exhibited of telephone records of the former Public Hospitals Authority Chairman.
The telephone records were introduced in the extortion and bribery trial, but not before several delays as the prosecution had to wait for the documents and its witness to arrive at court.
Calling its second witness, former BTC Manager of Internal Investigations and Fraud and Internal Auditor, Marlon Gary Smith took the stand as prosecutor Anthony Delaney introduced a CD and Call Logs, that the Smith, a 34 year employee of BTC was asked to produce back in July 2017.
The request of the documents, according to Mr. Smith were made while he was an employee at the phone company on July 20, 2017. The former BTC employee, now an Internal Auditor at Bank of The Bahamas, testified that as a manager at BTC, he was responsible for internal investigations and liaised between the phone company and the Royal Bahamas Police Force in terms of communications that the police or the courts would need.
Mr. Smith said that it was in this capacity that the request was made, and he provided call records in the form of Call Log and CD in July 2017, upon a request from Sergeant 1492 Dale Strachan and Superintendent Huel Johnson.
Mr. Smith was able to identify the records because of his signature that appeared on both the CD and Call Log. However, Smith did reveal that neither officer had signed when they received the records.
Mr. Smith said that providing such records was standard procedure, and further explained to the court the layout of the records and what each column meant.
During cross examination, by defense attorney Damian Gomez, it was revealed that between November 2016 and January 2017 no phone calls were made between the two parties.
Frank Smith, is on trial facing 15 charges of bribery and extortion as he is alleged to have solicited $65,000 in bribes from Mrs. Hanna between April 2016 to April.
The trial continues today at 10 am.
