Derek Achong

Mag­is­trate Ejen­ny Es­pinet has again de­nied the ac­cused in the Pi­ar­co II fraud in­quiry a lengthy ad­journ­ment of the case.Dur­ing a hear­ing of the in­quiry at the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court yes­ter­day, at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing busi­ness­man Ameer Edoo asked Es­pinet for an ad­journ­ment of the case un­til af­ter a hear­ing of the Court of Ap­peal on Ju­ly 1.

In that hear­ing, the Court of Ap­peal is ex­pect­ed to hear an ap­pli­ca­tion for a stay of the Pi­ar­co in­quiry, which was brought by Edoo and Steve Fer­gu­son fol­low­ing the dis­missal of their Sec­tion 34 con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tions in ear­ly April.Yes­ter­day, State pros­e­cu­tor Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, op­posed the ap­pli­ca­tion and said that the ad­journ­ment would be un­fair to the oth­er ac­cused in the case who want­ed the mat­ter to pro­ceed.

In al­so ask­ing for the ad­journ­ment, Fer­gu­son in­formed the court that his at­tor­ney, British Queen's Coun­sel Ed­ward Fitzger­ald, re­cent­ly had an op­er­a­tion and could not trav­el to T&T for six weeks.Es­pinet even­tu­al­ly dis­missed the ap­pli­ca­tion and said that there were no le­gal bar­ri­ers to the con­tin­u­a­tion of the in­quiry. She ad­journed the mat­ter to June 7.

Last Fri­day, Es­pinet re­ject­ed a sim­i­lar ap­pli­ca­tion from Fer­gu­son's at­tor­neys in which they sought a five-month ad­journ­ment. The in­quiry is near com­ple­tion with on­ly one wit­ness be­ing left to be cross-ex­am­ined.

The ac­cused in the Pi­ar­co in­quiry in­clude for­mer Fi­nance min­is­ter Bri­an Kuei-Tung; for­mer Works min­is­ter Sadiq Baksh; Ty­rone Gopee and Ameer Edoo; for­mer client rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the Min­istry of Works at the air­port project Pe­ter Cateau; for­mer Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty ex­ec­u­tive Am­rith Ma­haraj; for­mer Mar­itime Fi­nan­cial Group ex­ec­u­tive Fer­gu­son; and chair­man of North­ern Con­struc­tion Ltd Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh.