?Busi­ness­men Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh and Steve Fer­gu­son were ar­rest­ed yes­ter­day and spent last night at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, Gold­en Grove.

This comes days af­ter the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil re­fused to grant the men leave to chal­lenge their ex­tra­di­tion to the US to face 95 charges re­lat­ing to the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co Air­port Ter­mi­nal. That rul­ing ef­fec­tive­ly end­ed their bail. Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh have been on $1 mil­lion bail each since their ar­rest in 2006. In an un­prece­dent­ed move, Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc Nicolls grant­ed bail in an ex­tra­di­tion case when in all oth­er sim­i­lar cas­es the want­ed per­sons were all kept in prison. On May 4, 2006, a grand ju­ry in Flori­da re­turned an in­dict­ment against Gal­barans­ingh, Fer­gu­son and six oth­ers in re­la­tion to cor­rupt prac­tices con­cern­ing two pack­ages for the con­struc­tion of the air­port ter­mi­nal. Months lat­er, six Amer­i­cans plead­ed guilty be­fore Judge Paul Huck in the Mi­a­mi Fed­er­al Court and were sen­tenced to terms be­tween six months and six years.

The case against Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son is still pend­ing. Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh have con­tend­ed they have al­ready en­dured sev­en years of do­mes­tic crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings in re­spect of the same al­le­ga­tions made in the Unit­ed States. Last week At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan gave the men un­til to­mor­row to show why they should not be ex­tra­dit­ed. Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er James Philbert told CNC3 last night that Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son were ar­rest­ed af­ter war­rants were ex­e­cut­ed on them. Philbert said that was done af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with Di­rec­tor or Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard.

The po­lice boss said the two busi­ness­men would re­main in prison un­til they were ex­tra­dit­ed to the US. Ram­lo­gan said last night he has "no role or func­tion" in the mat­ter. Un­der the laws of the coun­try the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al has to sign-off on the ex­tra­di­tion.