A bil­lion­aire prop­er­ty de­vel­op­er will re­turn to the South­wark Crown Court on June 20 this year, af­ter he was charged with brib­ing a for­mer An­tigua and Bar­bu­da gov­ern­ment min­is­ter.

A state­ment from the Na­tion­al Crime Agency (NCA) said that Pe­ter Vird­ee, who was want­ed in re­la­tion to a mul­ti-mil­lion-pound (One GBP=US$1.27 cents) NCA bribery in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been charged along­side the com­pa­ny of which he is a di­rec­tor.

It said that Vird­ee, 50, al­so known as Hardip Singh, ap­peared at West­min­ster Mag­is­trates Court on Thurs­day to an­swer the charge that be­tween Jan­u­ary 2015 and Ju­ly 2017 he bribed a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter of Tourism, Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment In­vest­ment and En­er­gy for An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, to ben­e­fit PV En­er­gy Ltd, the com­pa­ny he is a di­rec­tor of.

PV En­er­gy Ltd was si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly charged with fail­ing to pre­vent bribery in re­la­tion to the same of­fences, the NCA said, adding that Vird­ee was bailed to ap­pear at South­wark Crown Court on June 20, 2024. —LON­DON (CMC)