In­dar­jit Seu­raj

For the first time in al­most ten months, fraud ac­cused busi­ness­men Steve Fer­gu­son and Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh have tast­ed free­dom. Short­ly be­fore mid­day yes­ter­day, the men emerged from the south­ern ex­it of the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison at Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca. With a bar­rage of pho­tog­ra­phers and cam­era­men look­ing on, they were quick­ly whisked away in a wait­ing black SUV. Gal­barans­ingh, don­ning his cus­tom­ary sun­glass­es, and with his hair in full grey, was greet­ed by his Eng­lish lawyer, An­drew Mitchell, QC. Fer­gu­son fol­lowed close be­hind, greet­ed by un­known as­so­ciates.

They post­ed $2 mil­lion bail set the pre­vi­ous day by Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh, sit­ting in the Port-of-Spain High Court.

It was an ap­pli­ca­tion for bail which went un­con­test­ed by the State, aris­ing out of a sub­stan­tive ju­di­cial re­view hear­ing be­fore the judge. Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh, who are want­ed in the Unit­ed States on a to­tal of 95 fraud charges, last tast­ed free­dom on June 15, 2010, when they were ar­rest­ed by In­ter­pol de­tec­tives at Pt Lisas. Late Thurs­day, lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the for­mer UNC fi­nanciers, in­clud­ing Fyard Ho­sein, SC, and Ra­jiv Per­sad, hur­ried to the prison in an at­tempt to post bail. But an er­ror in pro­cess­ing the war­rants for the men's re­lease could not be cor­rect­ed at such a late hour. A fam­i­ly friend and a rel­a­tive re­port­ed­ly stood as sureties for the bail. Le­gal sources said the men im­me­di­ate­ly went to their re­spec­tive fam­i­lies.

They are ex­pect­ed to re­port to the Four Roads Po­lice Sta­tion next Mon­day and Thurs­day, as part of the bail con­di­tions set by Boodoos­ingh. They are re­quired to sur­ren­der their trav­el doc­u­ments to the State, and are sched­uled to re­turn be­fore Boodoos­ingh on May 10. 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.

How events un­fold­ed

May 4, 2006-A Flori­da grand ju­ry re­turned an in­dict­ment against Gal­barans­ingh, Fer­gu­son and six oth­ers in re­la­tion to cor­rupt prac­tices con­cern­ing Con­struc­tion Pack­ages 9 and 13 for the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co Air­port ter­mi­nal build­ing.

Ju­ly 20, 2006-Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son were served with pro­vi­sion­al war­rants. Both men ap­peared be­fore then Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc Nicholls and were each grant­ed $1 mil­lion bail.

De­cem­ber 13, 2007-Both ap­pli­cants lost chal­lenges at the Court of Ap­peal where they had sought to re­view the de­ci­sion of then at­tor­ney gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, who signed the au­thor­i­ty to pro­ceed with the ex­tra­di­tion on Ju­ly 20, 2006.

Ju­ly 14, 2008-Both ap­pli­cants were com­mit­ted to be ex­tra­dit­ed to the US, by Mc Nicholls. They were lat­er grant­ed bail at the High Court by Jus­tice Ian Brook in the sum of $1 mil­lion each.

Ju­ly 24, 2008-They filed habeas cor­pus pro­ceed­ings.

May 6, 2009-Habeas cor­pus ap­pli­ca­tion dis­missed at the High Court.

May 3, 2010-Court of Ap­peal, by a 2-1 ma­jor­i­ty, ruled that Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh be ex­tra­dit­ed.

Jus­tice Ra­jen­dra Nar­ine dis­sent­ed in a 62-page judg­ment.

June 7, 2010-An ap­peal of the Court of Ap­peal's de­ci­sion was dis­missed by the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Lon­don Privy Coun­cil.

June 15, 2010-Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son were ar­rest­ed at Pt Lisas.

June 16, 2010-An ap­pli­ca­tion for bail was dis­missed by Jus­tice Vasheist Kokaram.

Ju­ly 29, 2010-Kokaram dis­missed a con­sti­tu­tion mo­tion brought by the in­car­cer­at­ed busi­ness­men, chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the ex­tra­di­tion (Com­mon­wealth and For­eign Ter­ri­to­ries) Act 1985.

Oc­to­ber 9, 2010-At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan signed off on the men's ex­tra­di­tion war­rants.

Oc­to­ber 15, 2010-Af­ter a late night sit­ting, Jus­tice Joan Charles dis­missed an ap­pli­ca­tion to ju­di­cial­ly re­view Ram­lo­gan's de­ci­sion.

De­cem­ber 17, 2010-Court of Ap­peal re­versed Charles' rul­ing and re­mit­ted the mat­ter for de­ter­mi­na­tion be­fore a High Court judge. An ap­peal to Kokaram's rul­ing in the con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion was dis­missed.