For­mer Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Stu­art Young, is de­fend­ing his move to hand over a con­fi­den­tial, no­tarised state­ment Vin­cent Nel­son, KC, made as part of an in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment to the Unit­ed King­dom’s Na­tion­al Crime Agency (NCA) that is con­duct­ing an on­go­ing crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to two promi­nent King’s Coun­sels, lo­cal at­tor­neys, in­clud­ing the daugh­ter of a po­lit­i­cal­ly ex­posed per­son in Trinidad.

In a brief state­ment on his Face­book page on Sun­day, Young said he took very care­ful note of what he ob­served be­ing re­port­ed in the pub­lic do­main sur­round­ing the crim­i­nal charges of Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, and Ger­ald Ramdeen and the in­volve­ment of Vin­cent Nel­son, KC.

He not­ed the mat­ters sur­round­ing Nel­son are sub ju­dice “and ac­cord­ing­ly it is pru­dent for me not to say much or be drawn in­to at­tempts to ob­fus­cate the truth or to jeop­ar­dise any on­go­ing le­gal mat­ters (ei­ther crim­i­nal or civ­il).”

How­ev­er, Young did de­fend his move to hand over the state­ment to the UK agency.

“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,” he said.

“It is al­so note­wor­thy that thus far, no re­port has re­ferred to the De­fence that has been filed by the State which I pre­sume will set out the State’s re­sponse, in­clud­ing de­nials, to claims be­ing made by Vin­cent Nel­son (who plead­ed guilty and ac­cord­ing­ly is a con­vict­ed crim­i­nal). This is as much as I will say at this stage, as to say any more would be im­pru­dent.”

Nel­son has since filed a civ­il ac­tion against for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi and the Gov­ern­ment as his lawyers are adamant that the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment was breached.

Ac­cord­ing to the con­di­tion­al­i­ty of the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment, “The no­tarised state­ment will be dis­closed to the DPP and the ACIB but sub­ject to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s du­ty to com­ply with all laws and statu­to­ry en­act­ments will not be dis­closed to any crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­to­ry and/or pros­e­cut­ing au­thor­i­ty and/or reg­u­la­to­ry and/or dis­ci­pli­nary au­thor­i­ty out­side the ter­ri­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

While Nel­son’s lawyers be­lieve the agree­ment was breached, the State is con­tend­ing that Young did no wrong and had pro­vid­ed the copy to the NCA based on an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties of the two UK lawyers.

The Sun­day Guardian re­port­ed that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the NCA in­to the King’s Coun­sels had prompt­ed the agency to ask for the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by Nel­son as it re­lat­ed to the oth­er at­tor­neys un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion (and not Nel­son in this case). Last week the DPP Roger Gas­pard, SC, dis­con­tin­ued the case against Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen prompt­ing nu­mer­ous ques­tions to be asked as to what led to the de­ci­sion.