Scottish QC is charged with perjury over ferry disaster

Lord Ramsay Dalgety, QC, a former director of Scottish Opera, is facing charges following an investigation into the sinking of the MV Princess Ashika ferry, which sank last August claiming 74 lives – mainly women and children.

Questioning has focused on his failure to order an independent survey of a vessel he later admitted was a "rust bucket".

Among those who drowned was 48-year-old Daniel MacMillan, from Islay.

Under Tongan law no evidence from the commission is admissible in a criminal court except perjury. Lord Dalgety's arrest was the third in connection with the tragedy.

A fracas broke out on Friday afternoon as Lord Dalgety, secretary of the government-owned Shipping Corporation of Polynesia, was arrested as he left the Fa'omelma Convention Centre, and was driven off in a patrol car.

Lord Dalgety, 64, an admiralty law specialist, was released two hours later on condition he remain under house arrest until a bail hearing set for tomorrow.

Lord Dalgety, whose public posts in Scotland included Edinburgh district councillor and deputy chairman of Edinburgh Hibernian Shareholders' Association, moved to Tonga in 1991.

In 2008, King George Tupou V made him Lord Dalgety of Sikotilani Tonga (Lord Dalgety of Scotland). He was also appointed chairman of the judicial committee of the Privy Council.

On Saturday, at a special sitting of the inquiry, Lord Dalgety's lawyer, Stanley Afeaki, complained that his client had been treated in an "outrageous" manner and the charge "trumped up".

He also accused Manuel Varitimos, assisting counsel, of providing "a bundle of information" from the commission upon which the perjury charge was laid, claiming that the Hippocratic oath privilege had been broken.

Queensland-based Mr Varitimos is an expert in Pacific commissions of inquiry and was involved with the Sandrine Inquiries in Papua New Guinea in 1997 into the hiring of mercenaries by Sir Julius Chan's government to quell the rebellion in Bougainville.

Lord Dalgety, also chairman of the country's Electricity Commission, was questioned about possible misuse of public funds, including setting his own salary and first-class overseas travel.

He was also cross-examined about his position as secretary of the Ocean Pacific Shipping Company, which he claimed to have given up years ago. But evidence showed the company was 40 per cent owned by the ferry company and that he carried out transactions through its Tonga-based account in January this year.