Kali­fa Clyne

For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan must clear the air on whether le­gal ad­vice he re­ceived on mo­tor ve­hi­cle tax­es in 2012 was re­lat­ed to two con­tro­ver­sial Range Rovers he bought for his per­son­al use.The is­sue was raised by an­oth­er for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al John Je­re­mie as he called for a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the pay­ment of le­gal fees by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al dur­ing Ram­lo­gan's tenure.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence on Mon­day, Je­re­mie said the "dev­il was in the de­tails" and said at­ten­tion need­ed to be paid to the pay­ment of le­gal fees for ad­vice sought on the "ex­emp­tion from tax­es on pur­chas­es of mo­tor ve­hi­cles."The in­voice date for the ad­vice was not­ed as Sep­tem­ber 28, 2012, two days af­ter ap­proval was giv­en for a tax ex­emp­tion of the Range Rover TDV Vogue.The ap­proval took place on the same day doc­u­ments were sub­mit­ted to Cus­toms and Ex­cise for an­oth­er Range Rover pur­chased by Ram­lo­gan, the Range Rover Au­to­bi­og­ra­phy.

One of the ve­hi­cles was sold to busi­ness­man Dev De­bideen.De­bideen's son, Varun De­bideen, al­so re­ceived briefs from the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and was named in the Pris­ongate scan­dal last year.The le­gal ad­vice was pro­vid­ed to the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al by at­tor­ney Sir Fen­ton Ram­sa­hoye, QC, on Sep­tem­ber 28, 2012.Both ve­hi­cles were un­der heavy pub­lic scruti­ny af­ter re­ports were put in the me­dia re­gard­ing the ap­proval of tax ex­emp­tions two years be­fore the ve­hi­cles were im­port­ed.

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al pro­vid­ed a de­tailed break­down of le­gal fees for the pe­ri­od June 2010 to Oc­to­ber 2014.Je­re­mie and an­oth­er for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj said the doc­u­ment gave a pri­ma fa­cie case for fi­nan­cial im­pro­pri­ety, and gave an ex­am­ple of a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter cost­ing the ex­or­bi­tant amount of $408,000.The state­ment of le­gal fees shows that the $408,000 fig­ure paid to at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen for a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter was in fact paid for three items.

A source close to Ram­lo­gan said the ad­vice sought from Ram­sa­hoye re­gard­ing tax ex­emp­tions on ve­hi­cles had noth­ing to do with Range Rovers but was re­lat­ed to a mat­ter with the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion.The source al­so said a sig­nif­i­cant amount of the fees quot­ed in the doc­u­ment could be at­trib­uted to au­dits, work done for the Of­fice of the DPP and out­stand­ing pay­ments for work done un­der the PNM.When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ram­lo­gan said he would con­tact his lawyers be­fore re­spond­ing.

Break­down

Lawyers re­ceiv­ing over $5 mil­lion dol­lars in le­gal fees be­tween June 2010 and Oc­to­ber 2014.

�2 Avory Sinanan, SC: Re­ceived $10,406,925. Rep­re­sent­ed the State in the mat­ter of Steve Fer­gu­son and Ish Gal­barans­ingh vs the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Al­so rep­re­sent­ed the state in for­mer Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion­er Nizam Mo­hammed vs the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Gladys Gafoor (for­mer deputy chair­man of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion) vs the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

�2 Alan New­man, QC: Re­ceived $14,474,613.54. Re­peal in­to Sec­tion 34 of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings).

�2 Charles Rus­sell (British so­lic­i­tors): Re­ceived $63,181,472.71. BAE vs the Gov­ern­ment of T&T (Off­shore Pa­trol Ves­sels). Rus­sell is the state's stand­ing Privy Coun­cil agent.

�2 Dana See­ta­hal, SC: Re­ceived $9,294,500. Auc­tion of prop­er­ties At­tor­ney Gen­er­al vs Ja­mat al Mus­limeen. Rep­re­sent­ed the State in sev­er­al mat­ters for the DPP.

�2 Fen­ton Ram­sa­hoye, QC: $9,969,080. Ad­vice on leg­is­la­tion con­cern­ing vi­o­lent crime in T&T.

�2 Ger­ald Ramdeen: Re­ceived $15,541,423. Cheryl Miller vs At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. Afra Ray­mond vs Min­istry of Fi­nance. Wayne Kublals­ingh and oth­ers vs At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

�2 Is­rael Khan, SC: Re­ceived $11,660,800. The ex­tra­di­tion of Ed­mund Muntslag. Did work for the DPP on sev­er­al mat­ters.

�2 Jagdeo Singh: Re­ceived $5,772,166. HCU vs The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Sir An­tho­ny Cole­man. Bail ap­pli­ca­tion of Ed­mund Muntslag.

�2 Kelvin Ramkissoon: Re­ceived $9,723,399. Wayne Kublals­ingh vs At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. Unit­ed Cli­co Pol­i­cy­hold­ers law­suit. Steve Fer­gu­son and Ish­war Gal­baran­sigh vs The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

�2 Lar­ry Lal­la: Re­ceived $6,974,825. THA vs The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. Ex­tra­di­tion mat­ters.

�2 Pamela El­der, SC: Re­ceived $7, 831,500. Ex­tra­di­tion mat­ters. Amer­nath Jag­mo­han vs the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons and the AG.

�2 Rus­sell Mar­tineau, SC: Re­ceived $8,834,875. Re opin­ion-ex parte AG-David West; death penal­ty leg­is­la­tion. The JCC for the con­struc­tion in­dus­try vs the Min­istry of Plan­ning and Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment. Wayne Kublals­ingh vs the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

�2 Seenath Jairam, SC: Re­ceived $9,850,210. THA vs the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of T&T. Trade dis­pute Nos 528-535 of 2012 be­tween OW­TU vs CPO and PS in the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs.

�2 Vin­cent Nel­son, QC: Re­ceived $20,400,544. Le­gal and fi­nan­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Petrotrin, May 2012 and re: Ude­cott/ Hart. UTT brief on ap­peal hear­ing.