Derek Achong

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al has sought to change its le­gal team in King’s Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son’s law­suit over the al­leged breach of an in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment re­lat­ed to his role as the State’s main wit­ness in the now-dis­con­tin­ued cor­rup­tion case against for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, and at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen.

The change was re­port­ed­ly an­nounced dur­ing a hear­ing of the case be­fore Jus­tice Jacque­line Wil­son on Tues­day.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Wil­son was in­formed that Se­nior Coun­sel Dou­glas Mendes and Gilbert Pe­ter­son with­drew from the case and the AG’s Of­fice was cur­rent­ly in the process of brief­ing a British King’s Coun­sel to lead its le­gal team in the case.

The case was then ad­journed to a date to be fixed by the court.

Nel­son’s con­tro­ver­sial law­suit was filed in Feb­ru­ary and re­vealed in Oc­to­ber af­ter Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, was forced to dis­con­tin­ue the case against Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen.

Gas­pard’s de­ci­sion was based on Nel­son’s re­fusal to tes­ti­fy in the case against the duo un­til his mul­ti-mil­lion law­suit over the agree­ment is de­ter­mined by Jus­tice Wil­son.

Un­der the agree­ment, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, as le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Gov­ern­ment, agreed that Nel­son’s state­ment, which was used to ini­ti­ate the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the duo, would not be re­leased in­to the pub­lic do­main, in­clud­ing through Par­lia­men­tary de­bate.

While it stat­ed that the state­ment would be dis­closed to the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tion Bu­reau (ACIB), it not­ed it would not be dis­closed to pros­e­cut­ing, tax en­force­ment, reg­u­la­to­ry or dis­ci­pli­nary au­thor­i­ties out­side of T&T.

It al­so promised that no civ­il lit­i­ga­tion to re­coup fees paid to him would be tak­en against him with re­gard to the state­ment.

Al-Rawi al­so agreed to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions to the DPP’s Of­fice for him not to be pros­e­cut­ed though he ad­mit­ted that he did not have the au­thor­i­ty to com­pel such a move.

The agree­ment al­so sought to pro­tect Nel­son from any lit­i­ga­tion over the al­le­ga­tions con­tained in the state­ment, which it ac­knowl­edged may be chal­lenged for defama­tion.

Nel­son’s law­suit was ini­tial­ly sealed by Jus­tice Wil­son but Nel­son’s lawyers have since ap­plied to have the move re­versed.

The AG’s Of­fice has re­sist­ed the move as it claims that there is an over­lap be­tween the civ­il case and the crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings against the duo, which may be re­in­sti­tut­ed by Gas­pard af­ter the civ­il case is de­ter­mined.

In the law­suit, in which Nel­son is seek­ing al­most $100 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion, he is claim­ing mul­ti­ple breach­es of the agree­ment in­clud­ing his state­ment be­ing giv­en to the Unit­ed King­dom’s Na­tion­al Crime Agency (NCA).

Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has ad­mit­ted to giv­ing the state­ment to the NCA.

Young said: “Need­less to say, it can nev­er be a breach of any prop­er le­gal agree­ment, or law, to pro­vide ev­i­dence to a le­git­i­mate law en­force­ment agency.”

Al-Rawi has al­so de­nied any wrong­do­ing in re­la­tion to the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment as he claimed that it was done on Mendes and Pe­ter­son’s ad­vice.

In 2019, Ram­lo­gan, Ramdeen, and Nel­son were charged with con­spir­ing to­geth­er to re­ceive, con­ceal and trans­fer crim­i­nal prop­er­ty name­ly the re­wards giv­en to Ram­lo­gan by Nel­son for be­ing ap­point­ed to rep­re­sent the State in sev­er­al cas­es; of con­spir­ing to­geth­er to cor­rupt­ly give Ram­lo­gan a per­cent­age of the funds and of con­spir­ing with to make Ram­lo­gan mis­be­have in pub­lic of­fice by re­ceiv­ing the funds.

Short­ly af­ter be­ing charged, Nel­son en­tered in­to a plea agree­ment with the DPP’s Of­fice in ex­change for his tes­ti­mo­ny against Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen.

In March 2020, High Court Judge Mal­colm Holdip up­held the plea agree­ment and is­sued a to­tal of $2.25 mil­lion in fines to Nel­son for his role in the al­leged con­spir­a­cy.