Police investigating political donations complaint

Simon Bridges says the allegations from Jami-Lee Ross are “false and baseless”. File photo.

Police investigating a complaint against National Party leader Simon Bridges are looking into the matter to 'determine what further steps may be required from a police perspective”.

Former National Party member Jami-Lee Ross laid the complaint at Wellington Police Station on Wednesday regarding the disclosure of political donations under the Electoral Act.

Jami-Lee alleges he has a phone recording suggesting Simon had asked him to split a $100,000 donation from businessman Zhang Yikun into smaller parts, so it was below the threshold where it would have to be made public. Read more here.

Simon responded to those claims saying they were "baseless, false but serious allegations".

'The information supplied will be assessed by a Detective Senior Sergeant at Police National Headquarters to determine what further steps may be required from a police perspective,” says a police spokesperson.

'While we will not put a timeframe on how long this will take, we can say that this will be progressed as quickly as the information presented to us allows.

'Police take any complaint regarding alleged Electoral Act offences seriously.”

Police say decisions regarding the outcome of such investigations are made based on the facts and available evidence, and in accordance with the Solicitor General's prosecution guidelines.

'While we appreciate there is a high level of interest in this matter, police will not be providing general commentary or confirming specific actions we may or may not take, as is standard for any complaint we receive.
'Police will provide any relevant updates when we are in a position to do so.”

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1 comment

Should be

Posted on 18-10-2018 08:16 | By Merlin

Should be easy to follow the paper trail to what happened to the $100,000 it is either intact or been split up.


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