Gail Alexan­der &

Jesse Ramdeo

There is move­ment on the probe in­to the dis­ap­pear­ing and reap­pear­ing file in the Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man civ­il case, and a ma­jor part is now com­plet­ed.

This, aris­ing from yes­ter­day’s hand­ing over of an in­ter­im re­port on the mat­ter by re­tired Jus­tice Stan­ley John and ACP Pamela Schullera-Hinds (re­tired) to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC.

The hand­ing over of the re­port—on sched­ule—was con­firmed via a state­ment from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice.

John and re­tired Jus­tice Rol­ston Nel­son were ap­point­ed by Ar­mour in Feb­ru­ary to ad­vise the State on the way for­ward, fol­low­ing the court’s award of over $20 mil­lion to the nine for­mer mur­der ac­cused in the 2006 kid­nap­ping and mur­der of busi­ness­woman Naipaul-Cool­man.

An in­ves­ti­ga­tion was or­dered in­to the State’s fail­ure to file a de­fence in the men’s claim for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion—a sit­u­a­tion which was at­trib­uted to a miss­ing file of their claim.

John is lead in­ves­ti­ga­tor in the probe, Nel­son is lead coun­sel and Schullera-Hinds is al­so part of the in­ves­ti­gat­ing team.

Soon af­ter the team was an­nounced, how­ev­er, the file was re­turned and hand­ed over to act­ing So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al Kar­leen Seenath, who trans­ferred it to the in­ves­tiga­tive team.

John and Schullera-Hinds sub­se­quent­ly list­ed their nine terms of ref­er­ence—three of which were to be com­plet­ed for their in­ter­im re­port. John had promised this would be de­liv­ered by yes­ter­day.

The first three terms of ref­er­ence com­prise di­rect prob­ing of the is­sue with­in the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

The oth­ers in­volve rec­om­men­da­tions and re­ports to oth­er quar­ters - the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion and Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Of­fice—if find­ings re­quire this.

The re­port on the re­main­ing as­pects is due in Au­gust.

Yes­ter­day’s state­ment from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice stat­ed the re­port ad­dressed the fol­low­ing:

1. To in­quire in­to the facts and cir­cum­stances re­lat­ing to the men’s mat­ter com­menc­ing from June 22, 2020, when ser­vice of the claim form and state­ment of case were ef­fect­ed, in­clud­ing the de­ci­sion of the High Court dat­ed Jan­u­ary 30, 2023, and, cul­mi­nat­ing in the hand-over of the file in the mat­ter to the Act­ing So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al on the Feb­ru­ary 6, 2023.

2. To in­quire in­to and es­tab­lish the facts and cir­cum­stances re­gard­ing the role or roles played by any Min­is­ter, mem­ber of the Civ­il Law De­part­ment or any oth­er per­son em­ployed at the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs in the man­age­ment and con­duct of the is­sues.

3. To in­quire in­to and es­tab­lish whether there was any dere­lic­tion of du­ty, vi­o­la­tion of any law, con­flict of in­ter­est and/or breach of trust on the part of any Min­is­ter, mem­ber of the Civ­il Law De­part­ment or any oth­er per­son em­ployed at the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs in the man­age­ment and con­duct the case.

Ar­mour as­sured he will be con­sid­er­ing the re­port care­ful­ly.

His Min­istry stat­ed that he “looks for­ward to the equal­ly ex­pe­di­tious de­liv­ery by the In­ves­tiga­tive Team of the full and fi­nal re­port with rec­om­men­da­tions in re­spect of their fur­ther terms of ref­er­ence.”

Ar­mour de­clined com­ment when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on what the probe had re­vealed so far in as­cer­tain­ing the file’s path, and es­tab­lish­ing the facts re­gard­ing the role played by any Min­is­ter or staffer in the is­sue, and whether there was dere­lic­tion of du­ty or oth­er prob­lems on the part of any­one in the Min­istry re­gard­ing the case.

On Mon­day, the AG’s Of­fice re­vealed it will chal­lenge the $20 mil­lion award to the claimants.

Yes­ter­day, UNC MP Sad­dam Ho­sein said he hoped the AG would make the full re­port pub­lic.

“I hope the Gov­ern­ment is not us­ing this guise of re­ceiv­ing an in­ter­im re­port to hide this re­port from the pub­lic’s view be­cause at the end of the day, it is a large ex­pen­di­ture of pub­lic monies that has been award­ed by a court.”

Ho­sein said giv­en the scope of the spe­cif­ic terms and con­di­tions of the re­port, it was crit­i­cal for the pub­lic to be made aware, since the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al “could have dropped the ball on the mat­ter.”

STILL TO BE COM­PLET­ED IN PROBE

• To en­quire in­to and ex­am­ine the cur­rent pro­ce­dures of the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs and the civ­il law de­part­ment rel­a­tive to the man­age­ment and con­duct of civ­il lit­i­ga­tion in­volv­ing the State

• Make rec­om­men­da­tions to im­prove the man­age­ment and con­duct of civ­il pro­ceed­ings tak­en by and against the State and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs and the civ­il law de­part­ment and to have re­course through such tech­nol­o­gy and ex­per­tise as nec­es­sary.

• Re­port in writ­ing to the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (JLSC) any facts, cir­cum­stances or ev­i­dence which may, in the opin­ion of the in­ves­tiga­tive team, may give rise to, show or es­tab­lish the com­mis­sion of any dis­ci­pli­nary of­fence by any of­fi­cer in the ju­di­cial and le­gal ser­vice re­lat­ing the man­age­ment and con­duct of this mat­ter.

• Re­port in writ­ing to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) any facts, cir­cum­stances or ev­i­dence, which in the opin­ion of the in­ves­tiga­tive team, may give rise to, show or es­tab­lish the com­mis­sion of any crim­i­nal or fraud­u­lent act con­trary to the laws of T&T re­lat­ing to the man­age­ment and con­duct of this mat­ter.

• Make such oth­er and in­ci­den­tal in­quiries which con­cern and re­late to the sub­ject mat­ter of the in­quiry as the in­ves­tiga­tive team may deem nec­es­sary to give ef­fect to any find­ings made by the in­ves­tiga­tive team and/or rem­e­dy and pre­vent any act or con­duct as found by the in­ves­tiga­tive team and on the need, if any, for the en­act­ment of amend­ment or re­peal of any law of T&T re­lat­ed to civ­il pro­ceed­ings brought by and against the State.