Turks & Caicos ‘colonial’ graft probe

Michael Misick, the gangsta-style former leader of the Turks and Caicos islands, has spoken out against a British investigation into his suspect property dealings, and condemned a Foreign Office plan to take back control of the islands as "modern-day colonialism".

As The First Post reported last year, the Turks and Caicos islands, a collection of beautiful Caribbean islands where Bruce Willis, Sir Paul McCartney and Keith Richards have all recently holidayed, had become submerged in corruption.

It was alleged that 'Iron Mike' Misick, the island's Premier, who had only £25,000 worth of declared assets when he was elected to power in 2003, had become a multi-millionaire through illegal property deals.

A former estate agent, he is said to have sold off Crown Lands - Queen Elizabeth is the islands' sovereign - to developers hoping to profit from the 300,000 tourists who holiday there every year, and to have lined his own pockets while doing so.

The list of Misick's duties certainly gave him the opportunity to rule like a kleptocrat. As well as Premier, he was also the minister for Civil Aviation, Commerce and Development, Planning, District Administration, Broadcasting, Investment, and Tourism.

Faced with mounting accusations, and with many of the island's 22,000 residents living in fear of their leaders, the British stepped in, and commissioned Sir Robin Auld, a retired judge, to investigate.

Many of the complaints against Misick centre on his extravagant lifestyle. While Premier, he married Lisa Raye McCoy, a glamorous American actress, who said he seduced her with a gift of a Rolls Royce, the boast that he "owned a small Caribbean island" and the promise of a Hollywood mansion.

For a while they lived like hip hop royalty; she wearing diamonds, he in a white suit, but she has since filed for divorce. She cites his second family in Florida as one reason, his sleeping with a stripper as another.

McCoy is now a star witness against Misick, who stepped down as Premier this March. Sir Robin Auld has compiled his report, and condemned what he saw as "clear signs of political amorality and immaturity and general administrative incompetence". Now Misick, along with four unnamed Cabinet members, is facing criminal prosecution.

But Misick, who trained in law at the University of Buckingham, and is a member of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, isn't surrendering meekly. He accused Gordon Wetherell, the Governor who has the Queen's approval to take over the islands, of being a "racist dictator" during one session in the Turks and Caicos Parliament, and has called on the islanders to "fight the British common enemy".