Fran­cis Joseph

?Four days had been set aside for the hear­ing of the ap­peal of busi­ness­men Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh and Steve Fer­gu­son who are chal­leng­ing their ex­tra­di­tion to Mi­a­mi. But be­fore it could start yes­ter­day, lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the two men, chal­lenged one of the judges on the three-mem­ber pan­el. The ap­peal was due to be­gin be­fore Jus­tices Nolan Bereaux, Ra­jen­dra Nar­ine, and Gre­go­ry Smith. Both Ge­of­frey Robert­son QC and Ed­ward Fitzger­ald QC, chal­lenged Jus­tice Bereaux, say­ing it was wrong for him to pre­side on the ap­peal, hav­ing al­ready presided in one of the cas­es in the High Court. They al­so com­plained that Bereaux had made cer­tain re­marks, which could lead to a per­cep­tion of ap­par­ent bias.

Robert­son said he was sur­prised when he turned up in court to see Bereaux as one of the judges. He said at­tor­neys had been try­ing to find out who the mem­bers of the ap­peal pan­el were, but were un­suc­cess­ful. Robert­son said every­where in the world, the par­ties are in­formed of judges who are go­ing to sit on cas­es. He said at­tor­neys put aside their time, and their clients ex­pend­ed monies to have them flown from Lon­don for the ap­peal. The British QC said the ap­peal would have to be put off to a time con­ve­nient to all par­ties. Bereaux agreed to step down. The court rose for some­time to find a new quo­rum, but that was im­pos­si­ble. Bereaux said, "We can­not get a pan­el, not even for to­mor­row, so it has to go off. The ap­peal re­mains ur­gent," he added.

Bereaux said the court was pre­pared to sit in De­cem­ber, but the British lawyers were not avail­able. It was even­tu­al­ly de­cid­ed that the ap­peal would be heard over five days, start­ing Jan­u­ary 11, 2010. Robert­son ap­peared for Gal­barans­ingh, while Fitzger­ald, lead­ing Hema Singh, rep­re­sent­ed Fer­gu­son. James Lewis QC and David West, ap­peared for the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh are ap­peal­ing the de­ci­sion of Jus­tice Char­maine Pem­ber­ton, who on May 6, dis­missed their habeas cor­pus ap­pli­ca­tion. Gal­barans­ingh is al­so ap­peal­ing the dis­missal of his con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion on May 20. Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh have filed nu­mer­ous ap­pli­ca­tions over the last three years to avoid ex­tra­di­tion.

Fer­gu­son is con­tend­ing that there was a con­spir­a­cy to get him to the US, and that the charges did not ex­ist in law. On Ju­ly 14 2008, Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc Nicolls or­dered that Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh be ex­tra­dit­ed to face the charges in the Mi­a­mi Fed­er­al Court. Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh are want­ed in the Unit­ed States South­ern Dis­trict of Flori­da court to an­swer 95 charges of fraud, in­clud­ing mon­ey laun­der­ing, aris­ing out of the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co Air­port Ter­mi­nal build­ing. Six of the co-de­fen­dants, plead­ed guilty in 2006 and are serv­ing prison terms, the high­est be­ing six years. They have al­so agreed to pay more than US $6 mil­lion in resti­tu­tion to the Gov­ern­ment of T&T.