Ak­ile Si­mon

Sir Tim­o­thy Cas­sel, QC, has been re­hired by the State to pros­e­cute UNC Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day for a sec­ond time on a charge of fail­ing to de­clare his Lon­don bank ac­count to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion.

The dis­clo­sure was made yes­ter­day at the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court by State at­tor­ney Sab­ri­na Dougdeen when it was called be­fore Mag­is­trate Melvin Daniel. Dougdeen, who held for Cas­sel and Se­nior State at­tor­ney Sean Ra­jbansee, told Daniel the pros­e­cu­tion need­ed some time to li­aise with Cas­sel to arrange for wit­ness­es from abroad to have them pre­pared so they could be flown to Trinidad to tes­ti­fy in the mat­ter. Pan­day is fac­ing a re­tri­al on three charges of know­ing­ly fail­ing to de­clare his Natwest bank ac­count in Wim­ble­don, Lon­don, to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion for the years 1997, 1998 and 1999.

He is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Ravi Ra­j­coomar and his daugh­ter, Mick­ela. In March 2006, Pan­day went on tri­al be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc Nicolls and was found guilty on April 24, 2006 and sen­tenced to two years in prison. Cas­sel rep­re­sent­ed the state. Pan­day ap­pealed the mat­ter and the Court of Ap­peal quashed the con­vic­tion and set aside the sen­tence on the ground of ap­par­ent bias by the Chief Mag­is­trate. The Court of Ap­peal or­dered a re­tri­al but Pan­day chal­lenged this in the Privy Coun­cil but the Law Lords or­dered Pan­day to face a sec­ond tri­al.