Mark Bas­sant

Lead Ed­i­tor, In­ves­tiga­tive Desk

A wide-rang­ing and on­go­ing crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Unit­ed King­dom's Na­tion­al Crime Agency (NCA) in­to two promi­nent King's Coun­sels, lo­cal at­tor­neys, in­clud­ing the daugh­ter of a po­lit­i­cal­ly ex­posed per­son in Trinidad, prompt­ed Vin­cent Nel­son, KC, to file a civ­il ac­tion against for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi and the T&T Gov­ern­ment. The civ­il ac­tion by Vin­cent Nel­son, KC came af­ter a con­fi­den­tial no­tarised state­ment he made as part of the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment was hand­ed over by Stu­art Young, then a min­is­ter in the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs, to the NCA.

The NCA in­ves­ti­gates bribery, cor­rup­tion and mon­ey laun­der­ing in the Unit­ed King­dom.

Young's ac­tion led to the NCA ques­tion­ing Nel­son on state­ments he made about promi­nent UK at­tor­neys that are now the sub­ject of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to pos­si­ble le­gal fees kick­backs al­leged­ly aid­ed and abet­ted by lo­cal at­tor­neys.

Nel­son's lawyers, BCL So­lic­i­tors, who filed the civ­il ac­tion in Feb­ru­ary of this year and rea­mend­ed the claim in May, viewed this as a breach of the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment by the T&T Gov­ern­ment. The mat­ter has since been sealed by the T&T court. Nel­son is now seek­ing to have the mat­ter un­sealed.

Ac­cord­ing to doc­u­ments re­viewed by the Sun­day Guardian, Nel­son's state­ment to this Gov­ern­ment in Oc­to­ber 2017 was hand­ed over by Young to the NCA's li­ai­son of­fice in T&T around June 2018.

Sev­er­al ques­tions were sent via What­sApp to Young at least four times on Thurs­day and three times on Fri­day about his role in hand­ing over the doc­u­ment but he nev­er re­spond­ed to the ques­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to the con­di­tion­al­i­ty of the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment, "The no­tarised state­ment will be dis­closed to the DPP and the ACIB but sub­ject to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's du­ty to com­ply with all laws and statu­to­ry en­act­ments will not be dis­closed to any crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­to­ry and/or pros­e­cut­ing au­thor­i­ty and/or reg­u­la­to­ry and/or dis­ci­pli­nary au­thor­i­ty out­side the ter­ri­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go."

Nel­son's lawyers are adamant that the in­dem­ni­ty was breached, but the State is con­tend­ing that Young did no wrong and had pro­vid­ed the copy to the NCA based on an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties of the two UK lawyers.

The Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the NCA in­to the King's Coun­sels had prompt­ed the agency to ask for the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by Nel­son as it re­lat­ed to the oth­er at­tor­neys un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion (and not Nel­son in this case).

 "It is not a breach of the in­dem­ni­ty as you will see the un­der­tak­ing is sub­ject to the AG's oblig­a­tions at law and un­der statute one of which is the Mu­tu­al As­sis­tance in Crim­i­nal Mat­ters Act as well as com­mon law du­ties," a se­nior le­gal source said.

An­oth­er le­gal source said un­der the Mu­tu­al As­sis­tance in Crim­i­nal Mat­ters Act, "there was an oblig­a­tion to pro­vide NCA with the ma­te­r­i­al for its par­al­lel in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the promi­nent King's Coun­sel so­lic­i­tors".

Vincent Nelson, KC

TRINIDAD GUARDIAN

Doc­u­ments ob­tained al­so in­di­cat­ed that the NCA lat­er al­lowed the T&T Gov­ern­ment to take the lead in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and get Nel­son to pro­vide whistle­blow­ing ev­i­dence to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice. The NCA had al­so as­sured Nel­son through cor­re­spon­dence with his at­tor­neys that no ac­tion would be tak­en against him by them.

Nel­son, 62, was in­dict­ed in May 2019 on three charges of con­spir­ing to com­mit mon­ey laun­der­ing, con­spir­a­cy to com­mit an act of cor­rup­tion and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice. The last charge was dis­con­tin­ued af­ter he en­tered a plea agree­ment with the Of­fice of the DPP.

How­ev­er, last Mon­day, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard was forced to dis­con­tin­ue pro­ceed­ings against Anand Ram­lo­gan, for­mer at­tor­ney un­der the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment and Ger­ald Ramdeen, a for­mer sen­a­tor with the par­ty, as Nel­son was not will­ing to give ev­i­dence un­til his claim brought in Feb­ru­ary this year for breach of the in­dem­ni­ty and dam­ages were con­clud­ed.

Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that he is su­ing for 12.13 mil­lion pounds or $91.3 mil­lion TT as he is claim­ing for fu­ture loss of earn­ings from 2019 to 2028.

Af­ter the DPP's an­nounce­ment to dis­con­tin­ue the cor­rup­tion charges, he in­di­cat­ed that his of­fice de­cid­ed on the course of ac­tion af­ter "anx­ious con­sid­er­a­tion." Gas­pard in­di­cat­ed that it was based on the fact that Ja­maica-born Nel­son de­clined to be­gin his tes­ti­mo­ny in the duo's pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry, be­fore the de­ter­mi­na­tion of a civ­il law­suit with the Of­fice of the AG over an in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment.

While he in­di­cat­ed that his of­fice was not a par­ty to the on­go­ing lit­i­ga­tion, Gas­pard said that in this case, Nel­son was seek­ing dam­ages over an al­leged breach of the agree­ment, which was signed be­tween him and  Al-Rawi be­fore he pro­vid­ed a state­ment im­pli­cat­ing Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen.

The DPP said, "The State does not have the pow­er to com­pel Mr Nel­son to give ev­i­dence in this mat­ter." He al­so stat­ed that Nel­son can­not be ex­tra­dit­ed.

Af­ter Nel­son had no­tarised his state­ment in Oc­to­ber 2017 and his in­dem­ni­ty a month lat­er, of­fi­cers of the ACIB took sev­er­al state­ments from him in the pres­ence of his lawyer Tom Allen, KC. Nel­son's con­fes­sions were giv­en to the TTPS in Bar­ba­dos be­tween Jan­u­ary 30, 2019, to Feb­ru­ary 3, 2019, and in Trinidad, in April and ear­ly May of 2019 and again in late May af­ter Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen had been charged.

Dur­ing the pe­ri­od the ACIB would have been di­rect­ed by the DPP, and Ed­ward Jenk­ins, KC ad­vised the DPP.

Who rec­om­mend­ed con­tentious in­dem­ni­ty?

But who ex­act­ly would have rec­om­mend­ed this con­tentious in­dem­ni­ty?

The for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, now Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment in a press con­fer­ence on Wednes­day said he was ad­vised by Dou­glas Mendes and Gilbert Pe­ter­son and Mendes was the one who set­tled a writ­ten in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment that he ad­vised the State to en­ter in­to. Un­der that agree­ment, the spe­cif­ic con­text was that the no­tarised state­ment and the ev­i­dence of wrong­do­ing would be giv­en to the DPP and the ACIB.

How­ev­er, one se­nior le­gal source said, "As far as I un­der­stand, it was Nel­son's at­tor­neys that re­quest­ed a suit­able in­dem­ni­ty to ad­dress ex­po­sure in civ­il li­a­bil­i­ty for the monies paid to him in the past for le­gal ser­vices ren­dered. He ex­press­ly ac­cept­ed that the State could not speak for the DPP. He agreed that all ma­te­r­i­al would be giv­en to the DPP and the TTPS and that he could face crim­i­nal li­a­bil­i­ty. The sit­u­a­tion is no dif­fer­ent from a plea agree­ment ex­cept in this in­stance it's civ­il."

Al-Rawi was con­tact­ed to give a prop­er ex­pla­na­tion about the in­dem­ni­ty, whether the Cab­i­net was privy to this arrange­ment and the fact that tax­pay­ers will be made to pay for the State's col­laps­ing case.

But he said, "I con­fine my state­ments to the press con­fer­ence held on Wednes­day."

At that press con­fer­ence, Al-Rawi in­di­cat­ed that the AG is re­spon­si­ble for the ad­min­is­tra­tion of le­gal af­fairs gen­er­al­ly un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion (sec­tion 76 and sec­tion 79). This ex­plic­it­ly states that the AG does not need to go to the Cab­i­net for ad­vice in these mat­ters.

Un­der sec­tion 90 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, the DPP is em­pow­ered in any case in which he con­sid­ers it prop­er to do so, to in­sti­tute and un­der­take crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings against any per­son be­fore any court in re­spect of any of­fence against the law of Trinidad and To­ba­go. In the ex­er­cise of his pow­ers, the DPP is not sub­ject to the con­trol or di­rec­tion of the AG.

Since Al-Rawi's press con­fer­ence Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar via a press re­lease asked Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley if he had been aware of the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment. She fur­ther ques­tioned on Wednes­day if Row­ley had been part of what she de­scribed as a "ma­li­cious con­spir­a­cy".

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in her re­lease, al­so sub­mit­ted sev­en ques­tions to Al-Rawi in­clud­ing:

• Did the Prime Min­is­ter know about the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment? And if so, did he ap­prove it?

• Did he dis­cuss the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment with any oth­er gov­ern­ment min­is­ter or did he act alone in com­mit­ting the State to this lim­it­less fi­nan­cial risk ex­po­sure to Vin­cent Nel­son, KC?

• By let­ter dat­ed De­cem­ber 7, 2020, Al-Rawi sought the ap­proval of the DPP to pay Nel­son’s lawyers, Roger Kawals­ingh $6.6 mil­lion and Tom Allen, KC 2.75 mil­lion dol­lars. The DPP re­fused to ap­prove these pay­ments and in­stead re­buked Al-Rawi by telling him it was “im­prop­er”. The DPP fur­ther warned that the re­sult­ing fall­out would be a mat­ter for Al-Rawi and his le­gal ad­vis­ers. Why did Al-Rawi nev­er­the­less go ahead and pay Nel­son’s lawyers?

• Why did Al-Rawi agree to hide Nel­son’s tax fraud from the UK Gov­ern­ment as part of the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment?

Faris Al-Rawi

On Thurs­day, What­sApp ques­tions were sent to the Prime Min­is­ter at least three times dur­ing the day ask­ing if he had been aware of the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment, whether he was aware oth­er min­is­ters in­clud­ing Young knew about this agree­ment, if he felt that Al-Rawi had done every­thing above board, and if he felt there was a chance that the charges could be re­in­stat­ed by the DPP if Nel­son's civ­il mat­ter was dealt with swift­ly by the courts?

How­ev­er, Dr Row­ley who ap­peared on­line sev­er­al times when we checked at times for a re­sponse did not re­spond.

But the Prime Min­is­ter did ad­dress some of the mat­ters at a Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy con­fer­ence on Wednes­day night say­ing, "So, let me an­swer all of you tonight in the UNC and the me­dia. The Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go es­pe­cial­ly when the post is held by me, but in the Con­sti­tu­tion, it says al­so, the prime min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go has no in­volve­ment and no role in the pros­e­cu­tion of any per­son in this coun­try," Row­ley said.

"So those who ask­ing where is the Prime Min­is­ter in the mat­ter to do with the DPP's ac­tion and the Vin­cent Nel­son mat­ter the prime min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go has noth­ing to do with the pros­e­cu­tion and process­es against any per­son in this coun­try. So stop ask­ing for me," he said.

Row­ley said this coun­try's Cab­i­net was not run like a par­lour.

 "What mat­ter has to come to the Cab­i­net for the Cab­i­net to de­ter­mine if a per­son has a deal to turn state wit­ness? What the hell that have to do with the Cab­i­net? That is a mat­ter for the State's le­gal de­part­ment, ful­ly staffed by lawyers, lead by an at­tor­ney gen­er­al, the DPP, and the courts."

Key points of the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment

* The no­tarised state­ment will be dis­closed to the DPP and ACIB but sub­ject to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's du­ty to com­ply with all laws and statu­to­ry en­act­ments will not be dis­closed to any crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­to­ry and/or pros­e­cut­ing au­thor­i­ty, tax en­force­ment au­thor­i­ty and/or reg­u­la­to­ry and/or dis­ci­pli­nary au­thor­i­ty out­side the ter­ri­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

* No civ­il pro­ceed­ings of any na­ture what­so­ev­er will be com­menced against you (Nel­son) in re­spect of any mat­ter aris­ing out of the no­tarised state­ment. For the avoid­ance of doubt, no civ­il pro­ceed­ings will be com­menced against you by the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go and/or its state-owned cor­po­ra­tions for any fees paid to you, in re­spect of the le­gal busi­ness, in the pe­ri­od 2010-2017.

* The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al un­der­takes to rec­om­mend to the DPP, who has the pow­er to de­ter­mine whether any crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings can or will be com­menced against you in re­spect of any of the mat­ters aris­ing out of no­tarised state­ment, that no crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings be com­menced against you.

* The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad, on be­half of it­self, its ser­vant and/or agents here­by agrees to in­dem­ni­fy you and keep you ful­ly and ef­fec­tu­al­ly in­dem­ni­fied and at all times to keep you ful­ly and ef­fec­tu­al­ly in­dem­ni­fied from and against all ac­tions, suits, pro­ceed­ings, claims, de­mands, dam­ages, costs, ex­pens­es and li­a­bil­i­ties what­so­ev­er which may be tak­en or made against you or be in­curred or be­come payable or sus­tained by you by rea­son of the breach of any of the un­der­tak­ings con­tained here­in, or in en­forc­ing, or at­tempt­ing to en­force, your rights un­der the un­der­tak­ing con­tained here­in. For the avoid­ance of doubt, it is ac­knowl­edged that the in­di­vid­u­als, the sub­ject of the no­tarised state­ments may com­mence pro­ceed­ings for defama­tion to seek to force you to with­draw the no­tarised state­ment. It is ac­cept­ed and un­der­stood that the le­gal cost of an in­ci­den­tal to such ac­tion for defama­tion is cov­ered by the in­dem­ni­ty in this para­graph.

* No de­lay or omis­sion on your part in ex­er­cis­ing any right, pow­er, priv­i­lege or rem­e­dy in re­spect of this in­dem­ni­ty shall im­pair such right, pow­er, priv­i­lege or rem­e­dy, or be con­strued as a waiv­er of it, nor shall any sin­gle or par­tial ex­er­cise of any such right, pow­er, priv­i­lege or rem­e­dy, pre­clude any fur­ther ex­er­cise of it or the ex­er­cise of any oth­er right, pow­er, priv­i­lege or rem­e­dy.

Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard.

NICOLE DRAYTON

Nel­son's charges and the chronol­o­gy of events

1. In May 2019, Nel­son, KC was al­so charged in con­nec­tion with a se­ries of fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions and al­leged re­wards in­volv­ing le­gal fees paid to him for rep­re­sen­ta­tion in state briefs while Anand Ram­lo­gan held the of­fice of AG.

2. The DPP en­tered in­to plea dis­cus­sions and there­after, a plea agree­ment dat­ed May 2, 2019, with Vi­cent Nel­son, KC who at all times was rep­re­sent­ed by UK KC as well as lo­cal coun­sel.

3. On June 6, 2019, Nel­son ap­peared be­fore Jus­tice Mal­colm Holdip and plead­ed guilty.

4. The in­dict­ment was sealed pur­suant to the re­quest of the DPP and the or­der of the judge who ap­proved the plea agree­ment.

5. Nel­son's sen­tenc­ing was ad­journed on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions and on the last oc­ca­sion Jus­tice Holdip in­formed the par­ties that he would soon be el­e­vat­ed to the Court of Ap­peal.

6. Jus­tice Holdip then pro­ceed­ed to deal with sen­tenc­ing

7. Nel­son was there­after sen­tenced to the pay­ment of fines of $2.25 M and placed on a bond to keep the peace for three years or in de­fault, serve two years hard labour.

Nel­son's plea agree­ment

De­tails of the plea agree­ment had not been com­plete­ly re­vealed un­til now and the fol­low­ing is what the plea agree­ment re­veals.

(i) the Ac­cused (sic) shall give ev­i­dence for the pros­e­cu­tion in any crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings brought by the State against the said Anand Ram­lo­gan, Ger­ald Ramdeen, and any oth­er per­son(s) con­sis­tent with the truth and the con­tents of the state­ment/statu­to­ry de­c­la­ra­tion dat­ed the 30th April of 2019 here­to an­nexed and marked 'A' the con­tents of which said state­ment/statu­to­ry de­c­la­ra­tion the Ac­cused (sic) here­by war­rants are true to the best of his knowl­edge, in­for­ma­tion, and be­lief in con­sid­er­a­tion that the pros­e­cu­tor shall take a cer­tain course of ac­tion men­tioned here­un­der;

(ii) the Ac­cused (sic) shall pro­vide all wit­ness state­ments as might be re­quired by the DPP and or the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice for the pros­e­cu­tion of any crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings against the said Anand Ram­lo­gan, Ger­ald Ramdeen, and any oth­er per­son(s).

(iii) the Ac­cused (sic) shall make full dis­clo­sure to the com­plainant on the charges against him and to the DPP of all mat­ters in which he was in­struct­ed by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al, the Chief State So­lic­i­tor and or any pub­lic body.

(iv) the Ac­cused (sic) shall make full dis­clo­sure to the com­plainant on the charges against him and the DPP of any fur­ther wrong­do­ing of any de­scrip­tion whether in Trinidad and To­ba­go or else­where in which he has been in­volved;

(v) the Ac­cused (sic) shall trav­el to Trinidad and To­ba­go when re­quired to do so, up­on rea­son­able no­tice by the DPP and in con­sid­er­a­tion that the pros­e­cu­tor shall take a cer­tain course of ac­tion men­tioned here­un­der.

And WHERE­AS it was agreed that as a re­sult of the Ac­cused (sic) plead­ing guilty to the said of­fences and agree­ing to give ev­i­dence, pro­vide wit­ness state­ments, make dis­clo­sure and trav­el as set out above the pros­e­cu­tor shall take the fol­low­ing cours­es of ac­tion:

FILE PHOTO - Former attorney general Anand Ramlogan, left, and former opposition senator, Gerald Ramdeen.

(i) up­on the Ac­cused (sic) plead­ing guilty to charges set out above, the DPP shall dis­con­tin­ue the pro­ceed­ings against the Ac­cused (sic) on the fol­low­ing charge:

"Con­spir­a­cy to com­mon law to com­mit mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice to wit: Con­spir­ing with Anand Ram­lo­gan and Ger­ald Ramdeen on divers day be­tween the 1st of Oc­to­ber 2010 and the 9th of Sep­tem­ber 2015 that Anand Ram­lo­gan should mis­be­have in the Pub­lic Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al by the said Anand Ram­lo­gan ac­cept­ing re­wards from the Ac­cused for the said Ac­cused (sic) be­ing in­struct­ed to ap­pear ad­vo­cate in var­i­ous mat­ters in which the State was in­ter­est­ed or in which the State was the client;

(ii) to rec­om­mend to each and every court be­fore which the Ac­cused (sic) shall ap­pear in con­nec­tion with this mat­ter that the State con­sid­ers that it would be ap­pro­pri­ate for the Ac­cused (sic) to be grant­ed bail with­out sureties un­til the fi­nal dis­pos­al of the crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings against him.

(iii) to rec­om­mend to the court that it would be ap­pro­pri­ate for the Ac­cused (sic) to leave the ju­ris­dic­tion un­til he is re­quired to at­tend court;

(iv) to rec­om­mend to the court that the Ac­cused (sic) should be giv­en a non-cus­to­di­al sen­tence in view of the fol­low­ing fac­tors: per­son­al mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances, the Ac­cused (sic) plead­ed guilty to the of­fences set out above; and the Ac­cused (sic) agree­ing to give ev­i­dence for the State de­spite the great per­son­al risk to him­self; and

(v) to rec­om­mend to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice or any oth­er rel­e­vant se­cu­ri­ty agency that ap­pro­pri­ate mea­sures be tak­en to en­sure the per­son­al safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the Ac­cused (sic) once the Ac­cused (sic) is with­in the ju­ris­dic­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go; and

(vi) to file this agree­ment in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court forth­with up­on the ex­e­cu­tion here­of dat­ed this 2nd day of May 2019.

The doc­u­ment was then signed off by DPP Roger Gas­pard, the ac­cused Nel­son and the at­tor­ney for the ac­cused.