Derek Achong

The pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in­to wit­ness tam­per­ing charges against for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, is set to be heard in Ju­ly. 

Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle re­served dates in Ju­ly to hear the in­quiry af­ter re­fus­ing an­oth­er ad­journ­ment, when the case when it came up for vir­tu­al hear­ing be­fore her Mon­day morn­ing.

Ram­lo­gan is ac­cused of ob­struct­ing jus­tice by us­ing threats and bribery to per­suade Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) Di­rec­tor David West to not give ev­i­dence in his (Ram­lo­gan) defama­tion case against then Op­po­si­tion Leader and cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

He is al­so ac­cused of mis­be­hav­ing in pub­lic of­fice by im­prop­er­ly en­deav­our­ing for West not to tes­ti­fy on Row­ley’s be­half. 

The of­fences al­leged­ly oc­curred in Oc­to­ber 2014, while for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, who is al­so a wit­ness in the case, was serv­ing as na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter. 
Short­ly af­ter for­mer act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams ini­ti­at­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­le­ga­tions in Feb­ru­ary 2015, then prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­vised the Pres­i­dent to re­voke Ram­lo­gan and Grif­fith’s ap­point­ments. 
Ram­lo­gan was even­tu­al­ly charged with the of­fences in 2017. The first hear­ing of the in­quiry is set to take place on Ju­ly 11.  

Ram­lo­gan and for­mer op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen face sep­a­rate charges over an al­leged le­gal fee kick­back scheme. 

The charges against Ram­lo­gan, and Ramdeen arose out of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­most $1 bil­lion in le­gal fees which was paid to pri­vate le­gal prac­ti­tion­ers, who rep­re­sent­ed the State and State com­pa­nies in le­gal pro­ceed­ings dur­ing Ram­lo­gan’s tenure be­tween 2010 and 2015.  
The law­suits dealt with cor­rup­tion that al­leged­ly oc­curred un­der for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning.
Ram­lo­gan, Ramdeen, and Ja­maica-born British Queen’s Coun­sel Vin­cent 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.

Holdip fined Nel­son $250,000 for al­leged­ly con­spir­ing with Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen, to breach Sec­tion 3 of the Pre­ven­tion of Cor­rup­tion Act, which crim­i­nalis­es cor­rup­tion through bribery. The max­i­mum penal­ty for the of­fence is a $500,000 fine and 10 years in prison. 
He was fined $2 mil­lion for al­leged­ly con­spir­ing with the duo to breach Sec­tion 45 of the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act, which crim­i­nalis­es the con­ceal­ment of the pro­ceeds of crime. The max­i­mum penal­ty for the of­fence is 25 years in prison and a $25 mil­lion fine. 

Un­der his plea agree­ment, the con­spir­a­cy to com­mit mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice charge was dropped.
As part of his sen­tence, Holdip said that Nel­son, who had been in pro­tec­tive cus­tody dur­ing his vis­its to Trinidad for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and sen­tenc­ing, was free to re­turn to the Unit­ed King­dom while he cleared the fines un­der a 10-month court-ap­proved pay­ment plan.
He was al­so placed on a $250,000 bond to keep the peace for three years.

Dur­ing a hear­ing of Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen’s case in No­vem­ber last year, Ram­lo­gan’s le­gal team and pros­e­cu­tors from the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) said they were still locked in dis­cus­sions over whether the cor­rup­tion case should be filed in the High Court with­out a pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry based on the pend­ing procla­ma­tion of leg­is­la­tion seek­ing to abol­ish pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries. 

The case al­so came up for hear­ing be­fore Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle on Mon­day and was ad­journed to May 31.