Derek Achong

The tri­al of a nov­el law­suit brought by po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj, chal­leng­ing his pro­tract­ed de­ten­tion in Suri­name as part of a cor­rup­tion probe, has com­menced be­fore the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ).

The tri­al kicked off yes­ter­day at the CCJ’s head­quar­ters at Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain, with sev­er­al wit­ness­es, in­clud­ing Ram­samooj, who tes­ti­fied be­fore CCJ Pres­i­dent Win­ston An­der­son and Jus­tices Mau­reen Ra­j­nauth-Lee, Denys Bar­row, Pe­ter Ja­madar, and Chan­tal Onon­ai­wu.

Ram­samooj, 62, is chal­leng­ing his de­ten­tion in Suri­name in Oc­to­ber 2020.

He was in the coun­try’s cap­i­tal, Para­mari­bo and was held by po­lice as he was about to re­turn to T&T.

He was held on a “beperk­ing or­der” un­der which he was de­tained and de­nied ac­cess to le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion while he was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed over pay­ments he al­leged­ly re­ceived from the Suri­namese Post Sav­ings Bank.

While the or­der was even­tu­al­ly lift­ed, Ram­samooj was pre­vent­ed from leav­ing the coun­try and was charged.

In Sep­tem­ber 2022, he was even­tu­al­ly al­lowed to leave the coun­try af­ter a judge up­held an ap­pli­ca­tion based on his med­ical con­di­tions.

In the law­suit, Ram­samooj’s lawyers, led by Se­nior Coun­sel Justin Phelps, are con­tend­ing that the “beperk­ing or­der” was un­law­ful, as such is in­con­sis­tent with Cari­com treaties and poli­cies.

They are al­so claim­ing that Suri­name’s au­thor­i­ties dis­crim­i­nat­ed against him based on his na­tion­al­i­ty and he was sub­ject­ed to ar­bi­trary im­pris­on­ment in in­hu­mane con­di­tions.

“The ap­pli­cant is the sub­ject of a sham crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion aris­ing out of the po­lit­i­cal will,” they claimed in their court fil­ings.

While be­ing cross-ex­am­ined with the as­sis­tance of a Dutch trans­la­tor yes­ter­day, pub­lic pros­e­cu­tor Romeo Ram­per­sad ad­mit­ted that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Ram­samooj stemmed from a sep­a­rate probe in­to fraud al­le­ga­tions against the bank’s for­mer chief ex­ec­u­tive, Gin­mar­do Kro­mosoe­to.

Al­though he claimed that Ram­samooj was in­formed in writ­ing of the “beperk­ing or­der” and signed the no­tice, he ad­mit­ted that the doc­u­ment, which could prove that Ram­samooj was told that he had three days to chal­lenge the or­der, was not dis­closed to his (Ram­samooj’s) lawyers for the case.

How­ev­er, he claimed that it was hand­ed over to Suri­name’s le­gal team led by at­tor­ney Hans Lim A Po.

While be­ing quizzed by Phelps, Ram­per­sad ad­mit­ted that a trans­la­tor who sat in on an in­ter­ro­ga­tion ses­sion in which Ram­samooj al­leged­ly pro­vid­ed a con­fes­sion was barred from fur­ther par­tic­i­pa­tion in his pros­e­cu­tion af­ter Ram­samooj was charged and ap­peared be­fore a ju­di­cial of­fi­cer.

How­ev­er, Ram­per­sad claimed that the trans­la­tor’s re­moval was based on re­peat­ed com­plaints of bias made by Ram­samooj.

“He (Ram­samooj) had an at­ti­tude that he did not like any of the trans­la­tors,” Ram­per­sad said.

Ram­per­sad main­tained that Ram­samooj was told that he did not need to an­swer the po­lice ques­tions be­fore be­ing in­ter­ro­gat­ed.

In her ev­i­dence, Suri­name’s Chief Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tor Clau­dia Brigitte Bru­in­ing ad­mit­ted that she could not pro­vide de­tails about the probe in­to Ram­samooj, as she was not di­rect­ly in­volved in it.

Ques­tioned gen­er­al­ly about the “beperk­ing or­der”, Bru­in­ing stat­ed that it is a le­gal mea­sure orig­i­nat­ing in the Nether­lands.

She ad­mit­ted that the law in re­la­tion to such or­ders had de­vel­oped in the Nether­lands to in­clude im­me­di­ate in­de­pen­dent le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for per­sons sub­ject­ed to them.

Not­ing that sim­i­lar pro­vi­sions are yet to be im­ple­ment­ed in Suri­name, Bru­in­ing claimed that Ram­samooj was law­ful­ly de­nied ac­cess to an at­tor­ney while be­ing sub­ject­ed to the or­der.

Al­so tes­ti­fy­ing yes­ter­day was Ram­samooj’s British con­sul­tant car­di­ol­o­gist, Dr Jonathan Clague, who gave ev­i­dence over the ef­fect of Ram­samooj’s de­ten­tion on his health, as he had a stroke and suf­fers from di­a­betes, hy­per­ten­sion, and se­vere coro­nary artery dis­ease.

Dr Calgue’s ev­i­dence was not chal­lenged by Lim A Po through cross-ex­am­i­na­tion.

The tri­al is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue to­mor­row when at­tor­neys are ex­pect­ed to present le­gal sub­mis­sions be­fore the pan­el.

Ram­samooj is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Narvin­dra Ram­nanan, Chase Pe­gus, and Suri­namese at­tor­ney Mil­ton Caste­len.