Prime Minister Perry Christie said yesterday parliamentary privilege should not be used to accuse someone of a crime, and added that he does not want his government or members of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) to be drawn into discussions about a person's innocence or guilt.

Christie spoke to reporters a day after Tall Pines MP Leslie Miller named business consultant Dion Bowe as the man Miller believes is responsible for the 2002 murder of his son Mario Miller.

Miller's comments, made on the floor of the House of Assembly, are protected by parliamentary privilege. .

"Anyone who knows me knows that I do not accept that Parliament is a place to do that," Christie told reporters at a Fox Hill Day celebration.

"I am very, very clear on that in terms of my own position. You have absolute privilege in Parliament.

"But we are not a court of law. A statement has really the impact of a judgment against someone. That is why it is a very difficult thing to have that happen in Parliament."

In one of its recommendations to the government, the Constitutional Commission said while it did not think limitations should be placed on parliamentary privilege, citizens who are subject to unwarranted personal attacks should have the right to respond from the bar of either chamber.

"We obviously have not reached that stage yet," Christie said, "so I do not want my government or the politics of the Progressive Liberal Party to be caught up in public discussion about whether someone is innocent or guilty in a country where we have laws that enable the police to investigate, to determine whether or not there is a prosecutable offense, and then to take due process to ensure that everybody is satisfied by an honest effort by the police to bring justice to the situation."

On the floor of the House, Miller said Bowe -- a man who he claims left the country for a decade following the brutal killing of his son -- resurfaced on New Providence and remains free, calling himself a business consultant.

Bowe yesterday strongly denied any involvement in the murder.

Miller said that less than a week after his son's murder Bowe approached him in the Hilton hotel and said he knew who killed Mario, who died at 28.

Miller then said he later learned from police that the same man told his girlfriend, who also had a relationship with Mario Miller, that he planned to have Mario killed.

During an interview with The Nassau Guardian yesterday, Speaker of the House Dr. Kendal Major said Miller did not violate any parliamentary rules which is why he did not caution Miller or ask him to withdraw his words.

The speaker said that parliamentary privilege gives members unfettered free speech unless they make an offensive comment against another MP.

"As long as he stays within the rules of free speech as it pertains to the rules of the House, then he is within his rights as a member of Parliament to call a name of an individual although understandably it may be astonishing to the public," Major said.

Major said it is "highly unlikely" that Bowe would be allowed to address the accusations from the bar of the House of Assembly if he wanted to, unless the House moved a specific motion to allow it.

"Right now the rules don't allow a member of the public to be invited to the bar to make a statement," Major said.

Free National Movement Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis said yesterday that Miller's accusations should have been expunged from the House's record.

Last week, Minnis was suspended from Parliament for two consecutive sittings for refusing to withdraw comments he made about the prime minister's relationship with fashion designer Peter Nygard.

"They put me out. I was fighting for democracy, freedom," Minnis said.

"Anytime someone's name is called in Parliament the PLP is up raising hell.

But yet when Miller was talking and naming the individual they were sitting down laughing."

Mario Miller's mutilated body was found in June 2002 in bushes near Super Value food store in Winton near his home.

After three trials, no one has been convicted of his murder.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian