Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

For­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Bri­an Kuei Tung, busi­ness­man Steve Fer­gu­son and Unit­ed States busi­ness­man Raul Gui­ter­rez Jr have sig­nalled their in­ten­tion to ap­peal the Gov­ern­ment’s US$131.5 mil­lion (ap­prox. TT$900 mil­lion) judg­ment against them, over al­leged fraud re­lat­ed to the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

The trio’s US le­gal teams filed the ap­peal last week af­ter Mi­a­mi-Dade Cir­cuit Court Judge Reem­ber­to Di­az ap­proved the fi­nal judg­ment sought by the State, which was ini­tial­ly ap­proved by a ju­ry in March.

Kuei Tung and Gui­ter­rez Jr filed their ap­peal joint­ly, while Fer­gu­son’s was filed sep­a­rate­ly.

Guardian Me­dia was un­able to con­firm whether the trio post­ed a bond cov­er­ing the en­tire judg­ment sum plus two years’ in­ter­est, which is nec­es­sary to stay the en­force­ment of the judg­ment pend­ing the out­come of the ap­peal.

In a me­dia con­fer­ence af­ter Di­az’s judg­ment last week, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al and cur­rent Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi an­nounced the Gov­ern­ment’s plan to en­force the judg­ment against the trio as they mulled over their ap­peal.

Al-Rawi ex­plained that the en­force­ment process would en­tail the State’s lawyers ap­ply­ing to the US court for the dis­clo­sure of the trio’s US as­sets.

He al­so ex­plained that the three in­di­vid­u­als do not have to pay equal por­tions of the judg­ment sum, as the en­tire com­pen­sa­tion could be tak­en from one de­pend­ing on the cir­cum­stances.

“It does not have to be split in three. It is up to them how they are go­ing to treat with the civ­il li­a­bil­i­ty amongst them­selves,” Al-Rawi said.

The fi­nal judg­ment ob­tained in the Mi­a­mi case is based on the US$32,385,988 in com­pen­sa­tion by the ju­ry, which has to be tripled as the rack­e­teer­ing charges were filed un­der the US’s Rack­e­teer In­flu­enced and Cor­rupt Or­gan­i­sa­tions Act (RI­CO).

The coun­try al­so suc­cess­ful­ly sought US$38,876,972.89 in pre­judg­ment in­ter­est less US$4,631,691, which was pre­vi­ous­ly paid by the trio in set­tle­ments and resti­tu­tion.

The US law­suit re­lates to the al­leged in­fla­tion of two re­lat­ed con­struc­tion con­tracts and a main­te­nance con­tract for the air­port.

The US case is sep­a­rate from four lo­cal crim­i­nal cas­es over the air­port project.

In the first case, com­mon­ly re­ferred to as Pi­ar­co One, a group of gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and busi­ness­peo­ple was charged with of­fences re­lat­ed to the al­leged theft of $19 mil­lion.

The group in­clud­ed busi­ness­man Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh, Kuei Tung; for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Rus­sell Hug­gins; for­mer Nipdec chair­man Ed­ward Bay­ley (now de­ceased); Mar­itime Gen­er­al ex­ec­u­tives John Smith (now de­ceased), Fer­gu­son and Bar­bara Gomes; North­ern Con­struc­tion Fi­nan­cial Di­rec­tor Am­rith Ma­haraj; and Kuei Tung’s then com­pan­ion Re­nee Pierre.

Some of the group and oth­er pub­lic of­fi­cials were al­so slapped with sep­a­rate charges over an al­leged broad­er con­spir­a­cy in an­oth­er case, com­mon­ly re­ferred to as Pi­ar­co Two.

The Pi­ar­co Three case per­tained to a £25,000 bribe al­leged­ly re­ceived by for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day and his wife Oma and al­leged­ly paid by Gal­barans­ingh and for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Car­los John as an al­leged in­duce­ment in re­la­tion to the air­port project. The Pi­ar­co Four case on­ly in­volves Pierre.

In 2019, a High Court Judge up­held a le­gal chal­lenge over the Pi­ar­co Two case af­ter for­mer se­nior mag­is­trate Ejen­ny Es­pinet re­tired with the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry al­most com­plete.

The rul­ing meant that the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in­to the Pi­ar­co Two case had to be restart­ed afresh be­fore a new mag­is­trate, along with the Pi­ar­co Three in­quiry, which was al­so be­fore Es­pinet and left in­com­plete up­on her re­tire­ment. The Pi­ar­co Four in­quiry was com­plet­ed with Pierre be­ing com­mit­ted to stand tri­al.

In June last year, the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil up­held an ap­peal from some of the ac­cused in the Pi­ar­co 1 case over the de­ci­sion of for­mer chief mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc­Ni­colls to com­mit them to stand tri­al for the charges. The Privy Coun­cil ruled that Mc­Ni­colls should have up­held their ap­pli­ca­tion for him to re­cuse him­self from the case as he was “hope­less­ly com­pro­mised,” based on a then-pend­ing land deal with Cli­co and the in­volve­ment of for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, SC, in help­ing him re­solve it.

In March, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, dis­con­tin­ued the Pi­ar­co Three case against the Pan­days, Gal­barans­ingh and John.

Gas­pard ex­plained that his de­ci­sion was based on the low prob­a­bil­i­ty of his of­fice se­cur­ing con­vic­tions in the case. He not­ed that sev­er­al key wit­ness­es in the case have died since the group was charged in 2006 and one main wit­ness is now el­der­ly and lives abroad.

He al­so point­ed out that the ac­cused had a “fair ar­gu­ment” that they faced “pre­sumed, pre­sump­tive, and spe­cif­ic” prej­u­dice in the case.

In a sub­se­quent ra­dio in­ter­view, Gas­pard not­ed that he planned to con­tin­ue pros­e­cut­ing the re­main­ing cas­es.

Gas­pard said: “I have made no de­ter­mi­na­tion ex­cept that we are pro­ceed­ing with the rest.”