Derek Achong

The Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) has been met with de­lays in start­ing its pros­e­cu­tion of the al­leged le­gal fee kick­back case against for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, and Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen. 

When the case came up for a sta­tus hear­ing be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle at the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court yes­ter­day, DPP Roger Gas­pard, SC, re­quest­ed an ex­ten­sion of time to file wit­ness state­ments in the case. 

Gas­pard stat­ed that the po­lice were hav­ing is­sues with ob­tain­ing two wit­ness state­ments from the State's main wit­ness British Queen's Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son, as he lives in the Unit­ed King­dom and has health is­sues. 

Gap­sard said he sug­gest­ed that the po­lice trav­el to the UK to com­plete the process. 

While Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle agreed to grant the ex­ten­sion to De­cem­ber 13, she sug­gest­ed that the po­lice use tech­nol­o­gy to get over the hur­dle.  

"I am not en­croach­ing on the pros­e­cu­tion's du­ty but have you con­sid­ered video con­fer­enc­ing?" Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle said. 

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Ram­lo­gan's lawyer Pamela El­der, SC, who had pre­vi­ous­ly com­plained over de­lays in dis­clos­ing the ev­i­dence in the case, said that she had re­ceived sev­er­al wit­ness state­ments since the last hear­ing. 

The case was ad­journed to Jan­u­ary 13, when Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle is ex­pect­ed to set a date for the start of the case. 

Ram­lo­gan is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Alvin Pariags­ingh and Rus­sell Warn­er. Ramdeen is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Wayne Sturge, Mario Mer­ritt, Alex­ia Romero, and Karunaa Bis­ram­s­ingh.

About the case 

The case against Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen cen­tres around the le­gal fees which were paid to pri­vate le­gal prac­ti­tion­ers rep­re­sent­ing the State and State com­pa­nies in le­gal pro­ceed­ings dur­ing Ram­lo­gan's tenure be­tween 2010 and 2015.  

While the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the con­spir­a­cy re­port­ed­ly com­menced al­most three years ago, Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen were on­ly de­tained and ques­tioned, in May. 

Ramdeen, Ram­lo­gan, and Nel­son are ac­cused of 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.  

Nel­son, who has Ja­maican roots, has signed a plea agree­ment deal with the DPP's Of­fice to plead guilty and tes­ti­fy against the duo. 

In June, High Court Judge Mal­colm Holdip ap­proved the agree­ment. 

Holdip will now have to de­cide if he al­so ac­cepts the sug­gest­ed sen­tence, agreed up­on by the DPP's Of­fice and Nel­son's at­tor­neys. 

In the event that Holdip be­lieves that the sug­gest­ed sen­tence is dis­pro­por­tion­ate, based on the cir­cum­stances of the case, he may sub­sti­tute an­oth­er which he thinks is more ap­pro­pri­ate when the case comes up for hear­ing, on Jan­u­ary 16, next year. ]

Ramdeen. who is on $1.5 mil­lion bail and Ram­lo­gan. who is on $1.2 mil­lion, can con­tin­ue to prac­tice law while their case is pend­ing.