Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan says he un­der­stands the anx­i­ety of the pub­lic for him to make a de­ci­sion in the mat­ter in­volv­ing busi­ness­men Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh and Steve Fer­gu­son who are now in jail. Ram­lo­gan said, how­ev­er, that he could not yield to the temp­ta­tion of mak­ing a rash de­ci­sion which would have the ef­fect of re­in­forc­ing a claim for ju­di­cial re­view. Ram­lo­gan was speak­ing to the me­dia af­ter the hand­ing-over of 75 ve­hi­cles to the Po­lice Ser­vice at the Ve­hi­cle Man­age­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Beetham Gar­dens, yes­ter­day.

The AG said: "I will not be rushed. I will take my time and be guid­ed by the le­gal ad­vis­ers who have been hired, and deal­ing with this mat­ter for the past num­ber of years." He said High Court judge Vashist Kokaram had made a de­ci­sion which bound his hands on the is­sue of whether he could ex­tra­dite or not. "As of yes­ter­day, (Thurs­day) that stay is no longer in place so I can now pro­ceed to con­sid­er the rep­re­sen­ta­tions made on be­half of Mr Gal­barans­ingh and Mr Fer­gu­son," the AG said.

"There is a process that needs to take place to en­sure that it is done in fair man­ner and in a gen­uine man­ner." He said the head of his le­gal team, James Lewis, QC, need­ed time to give a rea­soned re­sponse to the rep­re­sen­ta­tions made. "Mr Lewis in­di­cat­ed to me he can't be rushed in this mat­ter and the rep­re­sen­ta­tions made are very de­tailed and he would re­quire time to analyse those rep­re­sen­ta­tions, to re­buff them and to re­spond to them," Ram­lo­gan said.

"I un­der­stand the pub­lic's anx­i­ety and the calls to make a firm and swift de­ci­sion in this mat­ter but it is pre­cise­ly be­cause I hold this of­fice I can­not yield to the temp­ta­tions to give in and make such a rash de­ci­sion that will have the ef­fect of re­in­forc­ing the claim for a ju­di­cial re­view." He said un­til such time, Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son would re­main in­car­cer­at­ed pend­ing his de­ci­sion, there­by elim­i­nat­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of them ab­scond­ing. (RKR)