For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, and UNC Sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen have asked the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) to ex­pe­dite their case over a State le­gal fees kick­back scam.

Se­nior Coun­sel Pamela El­der, who is lead­ing Ram­lo­gan’s le­gal team, made the call on Mon­day, short­ly af­ter the duo made their first court ap­pear­ance in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court since be­ing charged with three con­spir­a­cy of­fences last Fri­day.

El­der said the quick pros­e­cu­tion of the case would en­sure that she is able to cross-ex­am­ine the State’s co­op­er­at­ing con­spir­a­tor British Queen’s Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son.

Nel­son, who has signed a plea agree­ment with the DPP’s Of­fice, has been re­leased on bail al­lowed to leave the coun­try to seek treat­ment for his prostate can­cer.

El­der said: “I would be ex­treme­ly grate­ful if we could pro­ceed with this mat­ter as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. In the event that he (Nel­son) suc­cumbs to his ill­ness and goes off in­to the here­after, at least we could take his ev­i­dence as ear­li­er as pos­si­ble.”

El­der’s re­quest was ac­cept­ed by DPP Roger Gas­pard, SC, who rep­re­sent­ed his of­fice at the hear­ing.

Gas­pard promised to pros­e­cute the case with alacrity as he claimed that his of­fice would en­deav­our to meet strict dead­lines for fil­ing and serv­ing the wit­ness state­ments of the dozen wit­ness­es in the case. The case was then ad­journed to June 28.

In an in­ter­view af­ter the hear­ing was ad­journed, Ram­lo­gan said that he was con­fi­dent in his le­gal team’s abil­i­ty to clear his name.

“I know at the end of the day the truth will emerge and I anx­ious­ly await my day and time in court,” Ram­lo­gan said.

Ram­lo­gan, who is al­ready fac­ing wit­ness tam­per­ing charges over a defama­tion case against Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, al­so stat­ed that he would con­tin­ue to prac­tice law while both sets of charges are pend­ing.

“I will be go­ing to court my­self to rep­re­sent my clients and will be back in my of­fice from to­mor­row. I in­tend to live my life as nor­mal. No weapon formed against me shall pros­per,” Ram­lo­gan said.

Ramdeen was not in­ter­viewed af­ter the hear­ing as he left while Ram­lo­gan was be­ing mobbed by me­dia per­son­nel.

Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen, who were grant­ed $1.2 mil­lion and $1.5 mil­lion in bail by a Jus­tice of the Peace, last Fri­day, both ar­rived at the St Vin­cent Street cour­t­house well be­fore the 9 am sched­uled start of the case.

Ram­lo­gan was dressed in a tra­di­tion­al grey suit, while Ramdeen chose to wear a navy blue “Nehru suit”- reg­u­lar­ly worn by lo­cal po­lice of­fi­cers for court hear­ings.

Both men ar­rived sep­a­rate­ly but were both flanked by their lawyers, a large group of their col­leagues from their law cham­bers as well as some of their for­mer clients.

When their case was even­tu­al­ly called by Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle, both men were forced to trade their usu­al places at the bar ta­ble for the pris­on­er’s en­clo­sure of the court. They stood silent­ly and on­ly spoke through their lawyers dur­ing the hear­ing, which last­ed al­most 10 min­utes.

Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen are charged with con­spir­ing with Nel­son to en­gage in bribery, mon­ey laun­der­ing and for Ram­lo­gan to mis­be­have in pub­lic of­fice.

Af­ter the charges were read, El­der point­ed out that the mis­be­hav­ing in pub­lic of­fice charge may have been im­prop­er­ly laid and sug­gest­ed that Gas­pard cor­rect it be­fore the next hear­ing.

“It is just a mat­ter of lan­guage,” El­der said. Gas­pard agreed to look in­to the is­sue.

The is­sue of bail, which was pre­vi­ous­ly grant­ed, was not con­sid­ered by Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle as it was not raised by ei­ther Gas­pard or El­der at the hear­ing.

De­fence at­tor­ney Wayne Sturge, who is lead­ing Ramdeen’s le­gal team, did not make oral sub­mis­sions in­stead opt­ing to sub­mit them in writ­ing at a lat­er date.

Ram­lo­gan is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Pamela El­der, SC, Alvin Pariags­ingh and Rus­sell Warn­er. Ramdeen is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Wayne Sturge, Mario Mer­ritt, Alex­ia Romero and Karunaa Bis­ram­s­ingh.