Fran­cis Joseph

?The bribe case brought against Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day and three oth­ers has been put on hold pend­ing the hear­ing and de­ter­mi­na­tion of his ap­peal on a ju­di­cial re­view claim that the pre­sid­ing mag­is­trate was bias. On Mon­day, Jus­tice Paula Mae Weekes, pre­sid­ing in the Court of Ap­peal, grant­ed the ap­pli­ca­tion for a stay of the crim­i­nal case, pend­ing the fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion of the ju­di­cial re­view case. When the bribe case was called yes­ter­day, at­tor­ney Mick­ela Pan­day, rep­re­sent­ing her par­ents Bas­deo and Oma Pan­day, hand­ed over a copy of the or­der grant­i­ng the stay of pro­ceed­ings. As a re­sult, Mag­is­trate Ejen­ny Es­pinet ad­journed it to April 19, when a sta­tus re­port will be giv­en to the court as to the state of the ap­peal.

Pan­day and his wife Oma are charged with ac­cept­ing a bribe of 25,000 pounds ster­ling from busi­ness­man Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh and for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Car­los John. The pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry be­gan be­fore Es­pinet on May 31, 2006. It was not un­til Feb­ru­ary 12, 2008, that Pan­day re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that the mag­is­trate was a trustee and trea­sur­er of the Mor­ris Mar­shall De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion. He ar­gued that the mag­is­trate nev­er dis­closed her in­volve­ment in the Foun­da­tion to any of the par­ties be­fore her. Pan­day al­so con­tend­ed that Es­pinet's fa­ther, Alexan­der Cham­ber­lain, was a PNM min­is­ter in the Dr Er­ic Williams gov­ern­ment. (FJ)