Derek Achong

Busi­ness­men Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh and Steve Fer­gu­son yes­ter­day scored a ma­jor vic­to­ry in their bat­tle against ex­tra­di­tion to the Unit­ed States af­ter the or­der was quashed by a High Court judge.Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh, pre­sid­ing in the Port-of-Spain High Court, de­liv­ered his 57-page judg­ment at the end of the busi­ness­men's ju­di­cial re­view ap­pli­ca­tion, chal­leng­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan's de­ci­sion to sign their ex­tra­di­tion war­rants on Oc­to­ber 9, last year.In mak­ing the or­der, Boodoos­ingh said: "It is de­clared that it will be un­just, op­pres­sive and un­law­ful to or­der the ex­tra­di­tion of Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son.

"The ex­tra­di­tion is de­barred by the op­er­a­tion of Sec­tion 16 (3) of the Ex­tra­di­tion Act." He said the ap­pro­pri­ate fo­rum to try the men in re­la­tion to con­tracts for con­struc­tion of the ter­mi­nal was T&T. He al­so or­dered that the State pay the busi­ness­men's le­gal costs, which in­clud­ed fees for two Queen's Coun­sel, a Se­nior Coun­sel and sev­er­al se­nior at­tor­neys. The men, for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) fi­nanciers, were want­ed in Flori­da on a 95-count in­dict­ment, stem­ming from al­leged mis­con­duct in the con­struc­tion of the $1.6 bil­lion Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ter­mi­nal.

They al­so face lo­cal charges of bid-rig­ging and con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud the Gov­ern­ment of T&T, which stemmed from two in­quiries (Pi­ar­co 1 and 11) cur­rent­ly be­fore the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court.In Jan­u­ary 2007, the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) dis­con­tin­ued some of the charges, pur­suant to the US ex­tra­di­tion re­quest.In quash­ing the ex­tra­di­tion or­der, Boodoos­ingh sug­gest­ed that the DPP might con­sid­er pur­su­ing the charges which were pre­vi­ous­ly dis­con­tin­ued. Dur­ing the tri­al, Boodoos­ingh was asked to con­sid­er the lo­ca­tion where the crimes were al­leged­ly com­mit­ted, lo­ca­tion of ev­i­dence in the mat­ters and in which coun­try the al­leged crimes had a greater im­pact on.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tions made to Ram­lo­gan, un­der Sec­tion 16 of the Ex­tra­di­tion Act by the par­ties in­volved be­fore he signed the war­rants, al­so were con­sid­ered by Boodoos­ingh."There is suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence be­fore this court to hold that im­por­tant rep­re­sen­ta­tions were not dis­closed to the claimants and they were there­fore de­nied the op­por­tu­ni­ty to put their case on these mat­ters be­fore Ram­lo­gan for his con­sid­er­a­tion," Boodoos­ingh said.

He said be­cause of that there was un­fair­ness to the busi­ness­men, which was al­so a rea­son for quash­ing their ex­tra­di­tions.Gal­barans­ingh, own­er of the North­ern Con­struc­tion Group of Com­pa­nies, is want­ed on a 13-count in­dict­ment, in­clud­ing charges of mon­ey-laun­der­ing in­volv­ing US$1 mil­lion (TT$6.3 mil­lion) dur­ing the pe­ri­od June 19 to De­cem­ber 10, 2001. Fer­gu­son, for­mer Mar­itime Gen­er­al CEO, is want­ed on an 82-count in­dict­ment, in­clud­ing mon­ey-laun­der­ing charges, in­volv­ing US$3,255,345 (TT$20,508,673) al­leged to have oc­curred from No­vem­ber 24, 2000, to March 28, 2002.

As part of Boodoos­ingh's judg­ment, the con­di­tions of the busi­ness­men's bail were re­laxed with the re­quire­ment of re­port­ing to the Four Roads Po­lice Sta­tion twice a week be­ing re­moved.De­spite pleas from the duo's le­gal team, the sure­ty re­quire­ment of their con­tin­u­ing bail and the sur­ren­der­ing of trav­el doc­u­ments were up­held by Boodoos­ingh.Af­ter spend­ing al­most ten months at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca, Boodoos­ingh grant­ed the men $2 mil­lion bail each on March 30 with a sure­ty that was lat­er ap­proved by the reg­is­trar of the Supreme Court.The men were rep­re­sent­ed by a le­gal team, which in­clud­ed Queen's Coun­sel Ed­ward Fitzger­ald and An­drew Mitchell, Se­nior Coun­sel Fyard Ho­sein and at­tor­neys Ra­jiv Per­sad, Rishi Dass and Nyree Al­fon­so.

Se­nior Coun­sel Avory Sinanan and Kelvin Ramkisson rep­re­sent­ed the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, while Suni­ta Har­rikisson rep­re­sent­ed the re­quest­ing state, the Unit­ed States. Af­ter the judg­ment was de­liv­ered by Boodoos­ingh, Fitzger­ald, who ap­peared for Fer­gu­son, told the court both men al­ways had ex­pressed the view that T&T was the cor­rect fo­rum for their mat­ters to be tried, not the US.The is­sue of fo­rum was a ma­jor claim made by the men dur­ing their tri­al.

Sinanan asked the court to grant a 28-day stay of ex­e­cu­tion in the mat­ter to al­low the of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al enough time to con­sid­er whether to ap­peal the de­ci­sion.Sinanan's ap­pli­ca­tion for a stay of ex­e­cu­tion was grant­ed by Boodoos­ingh.At­tempts to con­tact AG Ram­lo­gan for com­ment yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful.Both men are ex­pect­ed to reap­pear in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court be­fore Mag­is­trate Ejen­ny Es­pinet on Fri­day when the "Pi­ar­co 11" pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry con­tin­ues.