Busi­ness­men Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh and Steve Fer­gu­son have failed again to ob­tain bail, pend­ing their ex­tra­di­tion to Flori­da to face charges aris­ing out of the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co Air­port Ter­mi­nal build­ing. The lat­est ap­pli­ca­tion for bail was re­fused by Jus­tice Mal­colm Holdip in the Port-of-Spain First Crim­i­nal Court yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. In an oral de­ci­sion in cham­ber court, Holdip said he had no ju­ris­dic­tion to en­ter­tain the bail ap­pli­ca­tion. He said a sim­i­lar ap­pli­ca­tion for bail was brought be­fore Jus­tice Vasheist Kokaram last month. Kokaram dis­missed that ap­pli­ca­tion, leav­ing both men to re­main at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, Arou­ca.

In the sec­ond ap­pli­ca­tion, Holdip said he did not have the ju­ris­dic­tion to en­ter­tain the mat­ter and that no new cir­cum­stances had arisen to war­rant the grant­i­ng of bail. Yes­ter­day's de­ci­sion left rel­a­tives de­flat­ed. Gal­barans­ingh's wife, Cheryl, and Fer­gu­son's son, An­drew, left the Hall of Jus­tice with­out say­ing a word. Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son were rep­re­sent­ed by Pamela El­der SC and Owen Hinds Jr, while Kelvin Ramkissoon ap­peared for the state. Lawyers and rel­a­tives were non-com­mit­tal as to the next step, but the T&T Guardian was in­formed that an­oth­er ap­pli­ca­tion would be made to the Court of Ap­peal for bail.

Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son, two fi­nanciers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), were ar­rest­ed in Cen­tral Trinidad on June 15 – eight days af­ter they lost their habeas cor­pus ap­peal be­fore the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil.

They are now chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the Ex­tra­di­tion Act 1985. The fi­nal hear­ing takes place be­fore Kokaram in the San Fer­nan­do High Court to­mor­row. Both Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh had been on $1 mil­lion bail 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 3, the lo­cal Court of Ap­peal, by a 2-1 ma­jor­i­ty, ruled that Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh be ex­tra­dit­ed. Jus­tices Humphrey Stollmey­er and Gre­go­ry Smith, in a 59-page judg­ment, ruled against Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh, while Jus­tice Ra­jen­dra Nar­ine dis­sent­ed in a 62-page judg­ment. They were grant­ed a 72-hour stay in which time they would go be­fore the Privy Coun­cil. Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son had ap­pealed the de­ci­sion of Jus­tice Char­maine Pem­ber­ton who re­fused to grant them a writ of habeas cor­pus.

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 build­ing. 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. In Trinidad, Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh were among sev­er­al for­mer pub­lic of­fi­cials who were charged in 2002 with var­i­ous of­fences, in­clud­ing con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud the Gov­ern­ment of T&T aris­ing out of the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co Air­port Ter­mi­nal build­ing.

One pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry last­ed near­ly six years and the sec­ond is near­ing com­ple­tion in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court.

An­oth­er in­quiry, in­volv­ing Gal­barans­ingh, busi­ness­man Car­los John, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day and his wife, Oma, is still be­fore the mag­is­trates' court. Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh are ap­peal­ing to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan not to send them to Flori­da as they have sev­er­al mat­ters in the lo­cal courts. They ar­gued that they have al­ready en­dured sev­en years of do­mes­tic crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings in re­spect of the same al­le­ga­tions made in the Unit­ed States. They sub­mit­ted they have en­dured hun­dreds of days of court hear­ings and sub­stan­tial le­gal costs, stress, anx­i­ety and loss of rep­u­ta­tion. While this ap­peal has been sub­mit­ted, Ram­lo­gan has not yet made a de­ci­sion.