Unusually, a Bermuda businessman alleging a human rights violation by Bank of Bermuda directors got to argue his case twice ? once from the witness box and again in an impromptu address.

Harold Darrell, who launched his human rights complaint five years ago, gave evidence this week before a Tribunal specially appointed to hear his complaint.

His testimony, and cross-examination by lawyers for the accused, ended on Wednesday. Or so it seemed. The Tribunal heard more yesterday.

Mr. Darrell, standing by his lawyer Anthony Cottle, asked for the panel to hear him out for the second time in a week.

He said he felt that he was the one, instead of the directors charged, coming under fire.

Mr. Darrell?s complaint against the board of directors is that he was racially discriminated against in 2000, because they did not properly respond to his call for an investigation into a leak of his personal financial details to a potential business partner.

?Since these proceeding started, I have been under scrutiny,? he told the panel, visibly frustrated.

Mr. Darrell, the first witness to take the stand, came in for heavy cross-examination by respondents? lawyers Jeffrey Elkinson and Saul Froomkin, and a barrage of broadly personal questions.

The questions centred on a long-outstanding debt that went as high as $700,000.

The questions were asked to test Mr. Darrell?s motive and credibility.

Mr. Darrell, at turns, refused to answer because he said questions related too closely to a separate November hearing of his civil action against the bank for the confidentiality breach,

And it was alleged that Mr. Darrell only filed his human rights complaint after pressure from the bank to pay up his debt, the lawyers said.

?It is not supposed to be determined by the lawyers,? he said. ?This is being run like a court. This is a human rights tribunal.?

Chairman Paul W. King, who has already accorded Mr. Darrell what he called ?free rein? during the proceedings to make sure he got his say after a five-year wait, allowed Mr. Darrell?s unusual departure from the normal course of proceedings.

Mr. Darrell said he could have settled with the bank out-of-court, saying on Wednesday ?millions? of dollars had been offered to him. But ?I owed it to my son? and other black men in Bermuda now and in future, to fight the bank, he said, in his address yesterday.

He maintains the 17 directors named in his complaint did not individually discriminate against him. Instead Mr. Darrell says they are collectively responsible for what he alleges is a climate of institutional racism within the bank that especially targets black businessman.

?The bank is fighting black businessmen on technicalities,? he said. And told the Tribunal it had a ?unique opportunity? to make sure fair practices are instituted at the Island?s largest bank.

The bank says its directors and former chief executive Henry Smith, the seventeenth respondent in the matter, are not guilty of the racial discrimination charge.

The hearing is expected to hear more testimony from witnesses from each side today before adjourning until early 2006.

The matter was originally to have been concluded today but has run behind schedule.

The long adjournment accommodates witness schedules and lawyers already committed in the months ahead to other trials. In Mr. Elkinson?s case, that includes representing the bank in the November civil matter brought by Mr. Darrell.