标签： Jamaica

WASHINGTON (AFP) — On Wednesday morning, one of the world’s wealthiest individuals and most high-profile philanthropists, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, entered Capitol Hill to answer questions from U.S. lawmakers about his past connections to the deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. For years, Epstein’s sprawling network of elite, powerful associates has drawn intense public scrutiny and spawned widespread speculation across political and media circles.

Gates sat for a closed-door transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee, a panel probing the disgraced financier whose 2019 death in a New York jail cell came while he awaited trial on federal sex trafficking charges involving underage girls. As Gates made his way into the hearing room, he stopped briefly to address reporters, saying, “I hope my testimony is helpful to the work — important work — of the committee to find justice for the victims,” before declining to answer any additional questions.

The committee called Gates to testify after recently released documents from the U.S. Department of Justice opened up new lines of inquiry about the extent of his interactions with Epstein. Gates joins a growing list of high-profile public figures who have already appeared before the panel, including former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and current U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

In a pre-interview statement provided to AFP, a spokesperson for Gates said the billionaire welcomed the opportunity to address the committee’s questions and reiterated that he “never witnessed or participated in Epstein’s illegal conduct.”

Among the thousands of released Epstein documents is a 2013 draft email that appears to claim Epstein assisted Gates in managing public backlash after extramarital affairs, including helping Gates obtain antibiotics following a sexually transmitted infection exposure. Gates has repeatedly labeled the email a forgery and denied all the claims contained within it. In a February interview with Australian television, Gates acknowledged that his decision to build a relationship with Epstein was “foolish,” but stressed that the connection had no ties to Epstein’s criminal activities.

“Every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologise that I did that… It’s factually true that I was only at dinners. I never went to (his) island, I never met any women,” Gates stated in that interview.

Legal experts emphasize that mere inclusion in Epstein’s personal files does not constitute evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of any individual named. According to a prior Wall Street Journal report, Gates admitted to staff at his philanthropic foundation that he had engaged in extramarital affairs with two Russian women, but he has consistently denied ever interacting with any of Epstein’s victims. Gates has confirmed his relationship with Epstein began in 2011, three years after Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida to a state charge of soliciting a minor for prostitution. He has also acknowledged that his then-wife Melinda French Gates raised explicit concerns about his contact with Epstein as early as 2013, yet he maintained the relationship for at least another 12 months.

Melinda French Gates, who finalized her divorce from Gates in 2021, has previously stated that all outstanding questions about her ex-husband’s ties to Epstein are a matter for Gates and other involved parties to address.

The House Oversight Committee’s investigation into Epstein and his long-time accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell is part of a broader inquiry into how federal agencies handled the Epstein case and what transparency the government has provided around the thousands of documents tied to his crimes and network. U.S. President Donald Trump, who himself maintained a years-long relationship with Epstein, initially opposed the public release of the full cache of Epstein documents, leading to persistent accusations of a cover-up that have marked his first year back in office.

Democratic members of the committee have made clear they intend to probe what Gates knew about Epstein’s criminal activities, as well as the full scope and nature of their professional and personal relationship. Unlike many previous interviews the committee has conducted and released publicly, Gates’ interview will not be videotaped.

U.S. media outlets have also reported that Gates retained former Justice Department lawyer John Moran to represent him for the interview, and received preparatory assistance from Jake Greenberg, a former lead investigator for the House Oversight Committee. Ethics experts note that while the arrangement raises ethical optics concerns, it does not explicitly violate any congressional or ethics rules.

In a resolution that closes out a high-profile legal matter tied to Jamaica’s upcoming national elections, all criminal charges against Spanish Town Mayor Norman Scott have been formally dismissed by the Balaclava Criminal Court in St Elizabeth, following a successful out-of-court mediation process announced Tuesday.

Scott, who is running for a parliamentary seat in the St Elizabeth South Eastern constituency on the ticket of the opposition People’s National Party (PNP), faced two serious charges: assault occasioning actual bodily harm and malicious destruction of property. The allegations originated from a physical confrontation that broke out at a polling station located on the campus of BB Coke High School during pre-election polling activities held on September 3, 2025.

According to initial incident reports, the conflict erupted over disagreements about compliance with polling station time limits. Prosecutors alleged that Scott physically struck Julie Francis, an election supervisor representing the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), and broke her prescription eyeglasses in the altercation. From the outset of the legal process, Scott has entered a firm not guilty plea to all accusations leveled against him.

Scott’s defense counsel, Charles “Advoket” Ganga-Singh, consistently argued throughout pre-trial proceedings that his client was not the aggressor. Ganga-Singh maintained that Scott was actually the target of an unprovoked attack by a crowd of political opponents, and that Scott had already filed a separate counter-report with local law enforcement outlining his version of events.

During an earlier court hearing, Senior Parish Court Judge Steve Stewart granted a request to move the dispute to alternative dispute resolution, after both Scott and Francis agreed to pursue a negotiated settlement rather than proceed to a public trial. When the case was called for a status hearing on Tuesday, the court confirmed that mediation had concluded with a mutually acceptable agreement between all involved parties, clearing the way for the full dismissal of charges against Scott.

In comments to reporters after the court ruling, Ganga-Singh confirmed that every party to the dispute has expressed satisfaction with the mediated outcome. He added that the entire matter should now be considered fully resolved and closed, with no further legal action expected from either side.

Jamaica’s senior government official has sounded the alarm on the country’s decades-long land titling backlog, projecting that full resolution of the systemic issue could take up to two decades even with full public cooperation. Robert Montague, the minister responsible for Land and Titling, laid out the scope of the challenge during his address to the House of Representatives’ sectoral debate on Tuesday, emphasizing that delays will stretch even longer without widespread public buy-in for the government’s reform agenda.

According to official valuations, Jamaica currently counts just under 1 million parcels of registered land across the island. Of that total, only 550,000 parcels hold active formal titles. Montague explained that pervasive informal subdivision practices have created a cascading set of problems: the majority of untitled parcels lack formal documentation entirely, while many titled parcels remain registered under the name of previous owners rather than current occupants.

Across 379 formal and informal land settlements, which collectively include 62,690 designated parcels, government audits have found that roughly 35 percent have been split into smaller plots through unregulated, informal channels. Factoring in untitled land, unregistered subdivisions, out-of-date ownership records, and unprocessed claims in settlements, Montague estimates the country needs to issue roughly 600,000 new formal titles to completely resolve all existing land challenges.

The crisis has already inflicted tangible harm across Jamaican society, the minister told lawmakers. Without clear formal titles, land cannot be smoothly transferred between generations, leading to frequent property disputes that have in some cases resulted in fatal violence and fractured families. Beyond social harm, the lack of clear titling also blocks economic potential: the government cannot collect accurate property taxes to fund public services, while communities without formal land documentation are locked out of access to basic amenities including regular garbage collection, fire department response, and public street lighting.

To tackle the deeply entrenched problem, Montague’s ministry has unveiled a sweeping suite of coordinated reforms. The first major shift is elevating the land titling portfolio to full Cabinet level to prioritize the issue at the highest levels of government. The administration has also secured a landmark partnership with the South Korean government to build a specialized training institution for land sector professionals, a $9 million project fully funded by South Korea. The new school will train a new generation of surveyors, draftsmen, document verifiers, and other core land management specialists, expanding Jamaica’s limited pool of trained experts while introducing modern digital land management technologies from South Korea.

Montague noted that the investment in human capital will directly increase the government’s capacity to process and issue new titles at a faster pace. The government has also partnered with the globally recognized Certified Commercial Investment Member Institute (CCIMI) to deliver advanced certification training for local real estate professionals, bringing Jamaican industry standards in line with 31 other leading countries around the world. Accredited workshops for legal practitioners focused on streamlining land application processes are also being rolled out on a regular basis.

Other procedural reforms include expanding the number of local adjudication committees tasked with resolving land claims, with plans to route most adverse possession applications to these local bodies to cut down on processing backlogs in the national court system. A core pillar of the long-term modernization push is full digitization of all land management processes, including property surveys. Starting in September of next year, the ministry will begin issuing electronic land titles (e-titles) through a partnership with global tech firm Fujitsu, which is supporting the digitization of decades of existing paper land records to create a secure, searchable national database.

Montague projected that once the e-title system is fully operational, Jamaica will be able to process up to 30,000 or more new titles each year, a dramatic increase from current output. The new digital system will also include a built-in property protection service: landowners will receive automatic alerts any time a third party submits a title application for their registered property, cutting down on fraudulent attempts to claim land through adverse possession. The optional property watch alert service will be available for a small user fee, the minister confirmed.