Three years after he successfully defended charges of possessing two illegal guns, licensed gundealer Towfeek Ali scored another legal victory yesterday after his long-running malicious prosecution lawsuit ended in his favour.In a 47-page written judgment, delivered in the Port-of-Spain High Court, Justice Devindra Rampersad stated that the story told to the court by the police officers who charged Ali after raiding his Chaguanas-based Firearms Training Institute in December 2004, as "contrived and inherently improbable."
Rampersad also took issue with the lack of contemporaneous notes officers were required to make during the raid as well as several inconsistencies in police station diary extracts that formed part of the evidence in the case.He also questioned the logic in the officers' claim that Ali was in possession of two "old rusty firearms that could not fire," considering that he (Ali) would have had "access to an arsenal," as a licenced firearm dealer.
As part as his judgment, Rampersad ordered the State to pay Ali and his wife, Nyree Alfonso, co-owner of the business and former First Citizens chairman, $375,000 in damages in addition to paying the couple's legal costs for bringing the lawsuit.However, despite the win, the couple's legal victory was bittersweet as they were only awarded a fraction of compensation demanded in the multi-million dollar claim.
In their lawsuit the couple had claimed that prior to the raid and the criminal charges, the company benefitted from contracts and business from several departments of the Ministry of National Security, including the T&T Police Service and Defence Force.They said since the incident the company had lost out on its regular business due to the damage done to his own reputation and that of the company.
Ali had contended that he spent $600,000 for legal representation during his High Court criminal trial before Justice Hayden St Clair-Douglas which ended in his acquital in June 2011.Speaking to the T&T Guardian yesterday evening, Alfonso said although she and her husband had not received the exact compensation they were still satisfied with the outcome of the lawsuit.
However, she questioned why the State had contested their lawsuit in light of her husband's acquital in the trial, in which St Clair-Douglas had refered to similar issues with the officers' evidence in his summation.During the trial before Rampersad in January last year, Ali testified that on December 13, 2004, he was at his company's office at Montrose, Chaguanas, offloading a container containing guns and ammunition which were legally imported by his company.
He said shortly after his wife had arrived with their young son, a group of officers of the now defunct Firearm Interdiction Unit, led by ASP Chandrabhan Maharaj, and including Insp Mitchell Manswell and PC Clifton Thomas, raided the businessplace. The couple claimed some of the officers involved in the raid entered their offices without first providing a search warrant.
Ali testified that during the raid he went into the building to use the bathroom and was followed by two police officers who demanded that he leave the door open.He said that on leaving the toilet he heard the officers shout they had found two guns near the toilet.Ali said he was arrested a short while later when the senior officer on the scene arrived in his office and showed him two guns. Ali claimed the weapons were in the officer's pocket.
Alfonso, who also testified in the case, claimed the officers who were all dressed in plainclothes surrounded her car, pointed guns at her and her son and used "loud and hostile tones" as well as insulting and obscene language.