Derek Achong

For­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day says he is re­lieved by the de­ci­sion of Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard to dis­con­tin­ue one of four cor­rup­tion cas­es re­lat­ed to the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Pan­day made the state­ment yes­ter­day as he was in­ter­viewed by Caribbean Lifestyle Com­mu­ni­ca­tions one day af­ter DPP Gas­pard dis­con­tin­ued the charges against him, his wife Oma, for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Car­los John, and busi­ness­man Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh, on Mon­day.

Pan­day said: “This was a bur­den hang­ing on my shoul­ders and my whole per­son­al­i­ty for 18 years. Now that it is over I have to re­con­sti­tute my life.”

“I sup­pose this was a po­lit­i­cal pros­e­cu­tion. It seems that they can­not for­give me for build­ing the finest air­port in the Caribbean,” he added, in his trade­mark wit­ty style.

Ap­pear­ing be­fore Mag­is­trate Adia Mo­hammed in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court on Mon­day, DPP Gas­pard an­nounced his de­ci­sion to use his con­sti­tu­tion­al dis­cre­tion to take the un­ex­pect­ed ac­tion.

Gas­pard ex­plained that his de­ci­sion was based on the low prob­a­bil­i­ty of his of­fice se­cur­ing con­vic­tions in the case.

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

The case against the group was one of four, re­lat­ed to the air­port project, that were ini­ti­at­ed fol­low­ing the con­struc­tion of the air­port.

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 Gal­barans­ingh, for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Bri­an Kuei Tung; for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Rus­sell Hug­gins; for­mer Nipdec chair­man Ed­ward Bay­ley (now de­ceased); Mar­itime Gen­er­al ex­ec­u­tives John Smith (now de­ceased), Steve 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 Pan­day and his wife and al­leged­ly paid by John and Gal­barans­ingh 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 case is al­so yet to be com­plet­ed.

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.

Fol­low­ing the out­come of the case, DPP Gas­pard is­sued a press re­lease in which he not­ed that the in­quiry had to be ei­ther restart­ed or the ac­cused per­sons had to agree that in­dict­ments against them could be filed in the High Court with­out go­ing through the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry process.

Gas­pard not­ed that he would on­ly make a de­ci­sion on whether it should be restart­ed af­ter con­sid­er­ing pub­lic in­ter­est fac­tors in­clud­ing the age of the case, the costs in­curred by the State thus far, and the need to demon­strate the State’s com­mit­ment to pros­e­cut­ing al­leged acts of fraud on the cit­i­zen­ry.

He al­so sug­gest­ed a joint tri­al of all the al­le­ga­tions aris­ing out of the four Pi­ar­co cas­es would be de­sir­able.

In No­vem­ber, last year, British King’s Coun­sel Ed­ward Fitzger­ald wrote to Gas­pard on be­half of most of the ac­cused in the oth­er three Pi­ar­co cas­es and called for a sim­i­lar stay.

Fitzger­ald put for­ward six main grounds why he and his col­leagues felt that Gas­pard should ex­er­cise his dis­cre­tion un­der Sec­tion 90(3)(c) of the Con­sti­tu­tion to take the bold move.

“Where the in­ter­ests of jus­tice and the pub­lic in­ter­est can on­ly be met by dis­con­tin­u­ing the Pi­ar­co pro­ceed­ings, the DPP not on­ly has the pow­er to take that step but an oblig­a­tion to do so in his role as an im­par­tial “min­is­ter of jus­tice”,” Fitzger­ald said.

Fitzger­ald’s main ground of con­tention was that the move was nec­es­sary to pro­tect the moral in­tegri­ty of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem based on se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion that led to the charges against his clients.

He al­so re­ferred to Je­re­mie’s in­volve­ment in the cas­es in­clud­ing his then role as head of the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau (ACIB), which in­ves­ti­gat­ed and laid the charges in the cas­es.

Gas­pard is yet to an­nounce his de­ci­sions in re­la­tion to the oth­er cas­es but is ex­pect­ed to do so when they come up for hear­ing lat­er this year.