Grenada's Attorney General Jimmy Bristol resigned Friday after admitting he made "an error in judgment" in using his position to appeal for leniency for his stepson who fled the United States six years ago before he could be jailed for drug crimes. Prime Minister Tillman Thomas asked for Bristol's resignation after news broke about Bristol's actions.
An official statement from the prime minister's office said Thomas asked Bristol to quit in keeping with his promises to the people of Grenada "to restore high ethical standards, procedures, practices and integrity in public office."
Thomas did not immediately name a successor to Bristol. Earlier Friday Bristol admitted that he had written to prosecutors in the United States on the letterhead of the Office of the Attorney General seeking leniency for Emmanuel Ganpot.
He was one of four people charged with possessing or selling a variety of drugs, including ecstasy, GHB, ketamine and cocaine. The offences that would have landed Ganpot in prison for between 15 years and 105 years.
He pleaded no contest in exchange for a much shorter sentence and was to return to court in Florida in April 2003 to start serving his time but fled to Europe and assumed a new identity, calling himself Neo Niji Masuro.
U.S. authorities caught up with him, arrested him and returned him to the United States. His sentencing is scheduled for August 13, 2009.
Bristol's letter to U.S. prosecutors said in part, "We all err from time to time and should not have our lives completely destroyed by one slip up."
In announcing his resignation, Bristol said he accepts full responsibility for the error.
"It has nothing to do with the government and, indeed, today in a meeting with the Prime Minister I accepted that responsibility and apologized for the fall out that it has caused because it has impacted quite negatively on the government, least myself and my family," he said.
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