Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young is ques­tion­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­tain at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen as part of the State’s le­gal team in the high-pro­file mat­ter in­volv­ing busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve, ar­gu­ing that the ap­point­ment rais­es con­cerns giv­en that Ramdeen re­mains a de­fen­dant in a civ­il law­suit brought by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

The is­sue emerged days af­ter At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie an­nounced that two King’s Coun­sel, Sir James Ray­mond Ead­ie and Robert Stephen Strang, had been re­tained by the State in the Hadeed mat­ter.

The AG said the State’s le­gal team al­so in­cludes Ramdeen, who cur­rent­ly serves as chair­man at the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny.

Speak­ing dur­ing a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Young ques­tioned whether Ramdeen’s ap­point­ment was ap­pro­pri­ate.

“Ger­ald Ramdeen, from my rec­ol­lec­tion, is ac­tu­al­ly one of the de­fen­dants in lit­i­ga­tion brought out of the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, seek­ing to re­cov­er through resti­tu­tion, monies that were al­leged­ly paid by Vin­cent Nel­son in a kick­back scheme,” Young said.

“So, I think that’s the first thing that you all in the me­dia need to go and look for and find and ask those ques­tions.”

Young said the ap­par­ent con­tra­dic­tion war­rant­ed pub­lic scruti­ny.

“So then one starts to ask them­selves, well, okay, if you’re su­ing the per­son for some­thing as se­ri­ous as that, is it then prop­er to be re­tain­ing the same per­son? Or is it that you’re now in­tend­ing to com­pro­mise such a se­ri­ous ac­tion that this coun­try is very aware of?” he asked.

The civ­il pro­ceed­ings stem from al­le­ga­tions in a kick­back con­spir­a­cy case, which al­leged that se­lect­ed at­tor­neys re­ceived lu­cra­tive State le­gal briefs on the un­der­stand­ing that ten per cent of their le­gal fees would be paid back to gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and co-con­spir­a­tors as kick­backs.

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al filed the law­suit seek­ing to re­cov­er mil­lions of dol­lars in State funds from Ramdeen and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, through civ­il as­set re­cov­ery pro­ceed­ings.

Both men had pre­vi­ous­ly faced crim­i­nal cor­rup­tion charges linked to the al­le­ga­tions.

How­ev­er, in Oc­to­ber 2022, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard, SC dis­con­tin­ued the crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings af­ter key wit­ness Vin­cent Nel­son de­clined to tes­ti­fy un­til the res­o­lu­tion of a sep­a­rate civ­il in­dem­ni­ty claim he had filed against the State.

Fol­low­ing the col­lapse of the crim­i­nal case, then at­tor­ney gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour de­scribed the de­vel­op­ment as “stun­ning” and in­di­cat­ed that the State would con­tin­ue pur­su­ing al­ter­na­tive le­gal av­enues, in­clud­ing civ­il as­set for­fei­ture and re­cov­ery pro­ceed­ings.

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue yes­ter­day, As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers pres­i­dent Saira Lakhan de­clined com­ment.

Guardian Me­dia al­so con­tact­ed At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie for a re­sponse to ques­tions sur­round­ing Ramdeen’s re­ten­tion de­spite the pend­ing civ­il lit­i­ga­tion. Up to the time of pub­li­ca­tion, how­ev­er, no re­sponse had been re­ceived.