Oma and Basdeo Panday. Photo: Internet Source

Appearing before Magistrate Adia Mohammed in the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court yesterday morning, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard, SC, announced his decision to use his constitutional discretion to discontinue the charges against the group.

Gaspard explained that his decision was based on the low probability of his office securing convictions in the case.

He explained that several key witnesses had died since the group was charged in 2006 and one main witness is now elderly and lives abroad. He also noted that the accused had a “fair argument” that they faced “presumed, presumptive and specific” prejudice in the case. 

The case against the group was one of four related to the airport project initiated following an investigation by Canadian forensic expert Robert Lindquist.

In the first case, commonly referred to as Piarco 1, a group of government officials and businesspeople was charged with offenses related to the alleged theft of $19 million.

The group included Galbaransingh, former finance minister Brian Kuei Tung; former national security minister Russell Huggins; former Nipdec chairman Edward Bayley (now deceased); Maritime General executives John Smith (now deceased), Steve Ferguson, and Barbara Gomes; Northern Construction Financial director Amrith Maharaj; and Kuei Tung’s then-companion Renee Pierre.

Some of the group and other public officials were also slapped with separate charges over an alleged broader conspiracy in another case, commonly referred to as Piarco 2.

The Piarco 3 case pertained to a £25,000 bribe allegedly received by Panday and his wife, and allegedly paid by John and Galbaransingh, as an alleged inducement in relation to the airport project. The Piarco 4 case only involves Pierre.

In 2019, a High Court Judge upheld a legal challenge over the Piarco 2 case after former senior magistrate Ejenny Espinet retired with the preliminary inquiry almost complete. The ruling meant the preliminary inquiry into the Piarco 2 case had to be restarted before a new magistrate, along with the Piarco 3 inquiry, which was also before Espinet and left incomplete upon her retirement.

The Piarco 4 is also yet to be completed. In June last year, the United Kingdom-based Privy Council upheld an appeal from some of the accused in the Piarco 1 case, over the decision of former chief magistrate Sherman McNicolls to commit them to stand trial for the charges.

The Privy Council ruled that McNicolls should have upheld their application for him to recuse himself from the case, as he was “hopelessly compromised” based on a then-pending land deal with Clico and the involvement of former attorney general John Jeremie, SC, in helping him resolve it.