In­dar­jit Seu­raj

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) fi­nanciers, Steve Fer­gu­son and Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh, who are deemed in the Unit­ed States to be fugi­tives, were re­leased yes­ter­day on bail. High Court judge Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh re­leased them on $2 mil­lion bail each, with dif­fer­ent sureties, and or­dered the bail be ap­proved by the reg­is­trar of the Supreme Court. Af­ter the fraud ac­cused busi­ness­men spent al­most ten months in the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca, their at­tor­neys were suc­cess­ful in yet an­oth­er ap­pli­ca­tion for bail at the Port-of-Spain High Court. For yet an­oth­er time, lawyers for the state and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan - un­der whose in­struc­tions were act­ed on - chose not to ob­ject to bail and in­stead main­tained a "neu­tral" po­si­tion.

Avory Sinanan, SC, who leads a le­gal team for the state, com­pris­ing Kelvin Ramkissoon and Suni­ta Har­rikissoon, said the AG's po­si­tion was "right and prop­er" as a "de­fend­er of the con­sti­tu­tion." It was a po­si­tion lawyers, rep­re­sent­ing the AG, were crit­i­cised for when they last ap­peared on a bail ap­pli­ca­tion be­fore High Court judge An­dre Mon De­sir. On De­cem­ber 22, 2010 Mon De­sir re­fused to de­ny bail to the busi­ness­men, stat­ing their cir­cum­stances had not sig­nif­i­cant­ly changed to al­low for a fresh bail ap­pli­ca­tion.

At yes­ter­day's case man­age­ment hear­ing be­fore Boodoos­ingh, who is ju­di­cial­ly re­view­ing the process by which the AG signed off on the men's ex­tra­di­tion war­rants, the ap­pli­cants went armed with a fresh ap­pli­ca­tion for bail. Sinanan said at­tor­neys for the state and coun­sel for ap­pli­cants had come to a "con­sen­sus" on bail.

That, he said, was the grant­i­ng of bail with cer­tain "con­di­tions" at­tached and in­clud­ed the sur­ren­der­ing of trav­el doc­u­ments to the state.

Fer­gu­son, for­mer Mar­itime Gen­er­al CEO, and Gal­barans­ingh, chair­man of North­ern Con­struc­tion Ltd Group of Com­pa­nies, are want­ed in the US to an­swer 95 fraud charges aris­ing from the $1.6 bil­lion Pi­ar­co Air­port ter­mi­nal project. Fyard Ho­sein, SC, and Rishi Dass ap­peared for Fer­gu­son, while An­drew Mitchell, QC, and Ra­jiv Per­sad ap­peared for Gal­barans­ingh. Both teams are in­struct­ed by Nyree Al­fon­so. Up to late yes­ter­day, at­tor­neys and rel­a­tives of the pris­on­ers were try­ing to post bail. The Court of Ap­peal had grant­ed leave to the ap­pli­cants to re­view the Oc­to­ber 9, 2010 de­ci­sion by the AG to sign off on the ex­tra­di­tion. The men claimed they were not giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­ply to rep­re­sen­ta­tions sought by the AG be­fore com­ing to his de­ci­sion.

Boodoos­ingh yes­ter­day or­dered that at­tor­neys file and ex­change writ­ten sub­mis­sions by May 2, with replies to be done by May 10. The tri­al was set for May 10. Fer­gu­son, alone, is want­ed on an 82-count in­dict­ment, in­clud­ing charges of laun­der­ing US$3,255,345 (TT$20,508,673) be­tween No­vem­ber 24, 2000 and March 28, 2002. Gal­barans­ingh, alone, is want­ed on a 13-count in­dict­ment, in­clud­ing charges of laun­der­ing US$1 mil­lion (TT$6.3 mil­lion) be­tween June 19, 2001 and De­cem­ber 10, 2001. They are charged in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tions 44, 45 and 46 of the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act 2000.

Bail con­di­tions

Both busi­ness­men were re­leased on bail in the sum of $2 mil­lion each and the con­di­tions are:

1. There be sep­a­rate sureties;

2. the bail be ap­proved by the reg­is­trar of the Supreme Court;

3. they sur­ren­der their trav­el doc­u­ments to the state;

4. give an un­der­tak­ing they will not ap­ply for any oth­er trav­el doc­u­ments;

5. re­port to the Four Roads Po­lice Sta­tion on Mon­days and Thurs­days be­tween 6 am and 6 pm; and,

6. they be al­lowed to trav­el to To­ba­go for busi­ness in­ter­ests.