Basdeo Panday speaks with the media from his vehicle.
PHOTOS: DILIP SINGH

The fallout from the United National Congress (UNC) internal elections on January 24 made its way into the courthouse yesterday. Following a threat from Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner on January 14, Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday made good on the promise and turned up in court yesterday with a new bailor for his wife, Oma, who is facing a charge of corruptly receiving £25,000. Panday, Oma, businessman Ishwar Galbaransing and former government minister Carlos John were back before Magistrate Ejenny Espinet in the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court, where the preliminary inquiry has been in progress for nearly two years. As the inquiry was about to end, Panday filed for judicial review, claiming apparent bias on the part of the magistrate, who is a member of the PNM-founded Morris Marshall Foundation in Laventille, and whose father was a former government minister in the Dr Eric Williams Cabinet.

Justice Vasheist Kokaram threw out of the judicial review case last November which is now the subject of an appeal. An application for a stay of the preliminary inquiry will be heard on February 3. The magistrate adjourned the matter to February 5. But during the hearing yesterday, the issue of Oma’s bail was raised by her daughter, attorney Nicola Panday. She asked that her mother’s bail be revoked and that a new bailor substituted. The bail bonds, in the name of Jack Warner, dated May 31, 2005, were then revoked. Nicola said everything was in place with the Clerk of the Peace to have the new bailor take the $750,000 bail. But Oma was not taken into custody by the police until the new bail was granted. She calmly walked out of the courtroom and went to the Clerk of the Peace on her own. Within an hour, she was out again, having secured the new bailor. Asked who was the new bailor, Panday said that was a private matter.

The issue of the bail was raised at a meeting in Penal on January 14. Warner said at the campaign meeting: “All I will say tonight to Mr Panday is that if I am as dishonest as he says I am, Mr Panday, tonight, I tell you to do the honourable thing and get another bailor for your wife. Not me. I am tired of Basdeo Panday’s nonsense. It is over four years now I am holding $2.5 million dollars bail for his wife. “If I am as bad as he says, and I’m a conman and a monkey and so on, Mr Panday, take your bail. Take your bail, Mr Panday. You can’t stay on the riverbank and talk the river bad.” Meanwhile, Galbaransingh indicated yesterday that he intends calling former DPP Geoffrey Henderson as his witness.

Warner Responds
“Basic decency and courtesy would have suggested that she should have informed me, by whatever means, that she no longer needed the protection that I have been providing for her for these past four years. But that is neither here nor there, since I have more important things to see about at this time.”

Charges

CARLOS JOHN and ISHWAR GALBARANSINGH:
On or about the 24th of December 1998, in the island of Trinidad and Tobago and elsewhere, being an agent, did corruptly give the sum of 25,000 pounds sterling to Basdeo Panday, an agent, as an inducement or reward for the said Basdeo Panday favouring or forbearing to disfavour the interest of Northern Construction Ltd in relation to its principal business, namely Construction Package 3 at the new terminal development project at Piarco Airport, a matter in which a public body, namely the Airports Authority of Trinidad and Tobago was concerned, contrary to Section 4 (b) of the Prevention of Corruption Act Number 11 of 1987.

BASDEO PANDAY and OMA PANDAY:
On the 30th of December 1998, did corruptly receive from Carlos John and Ishwar Galbaransingh the sum of 25,000 pounds sterling as an inducement or reward in relation to Construction Package 3 of the new terminal development project at Piarco Airport, a matter in which a public body, namely the Airports Authority of Trinidad and Tobago was concerned, contrary to Section 4 (b) of the Prevention of Corruption Act Number 11 of 1987.