High Court Judge An­dre Mon De­sir is ex­pect­ed to de­cide to­day whether an ap­pli­ca­tion for bail brought by busi­ness­men Steve Fer­gu­son and Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh will be heard. Lawyers for the ap­pli­cants will have to cross the thresh­old and prove the cir­cum­stances had changed since the two were last re­fused bail by a High Court judge. Bail ap­pli­ca­tions were re­fused by Jus­tices Mal­colm Holdip and Vasheist Kokaram.

The law re­quires proof of a change in cir­cum­stances be­fore the ap­pli­cants can again go be­fore a judge in cham­bers for bail. Sub­mis­sions on the point were made by lawyers for the pris­on­ers. Av­ery Sinanan, SC, re­spond­ed for the of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. Mon De­sir, sit­ting in the Port-of-Spain Third Crim­i­nal Court, will rule on the pre­lim­i­nary point be­fore de­cid­ing to hear the ap­pli­ca­tion. Sinanan leads Kelvin Ramkissoon, Karel Dou­glas, Suni­ta Har­rikissoon and Grace Jankie for the AG, while An­drew Mitchell, QC, and Ra­jiv Per­sad ap­pear for Gal­barans­ingh. Se­nior Coun­sel Fyard Ho­sein, Nyree Al­fon­so, Sasha Bridge­mo­hans­ingh and Rishi Dass, rep­re­sent Fer­gu­son.

On May 4, 2006, a Flori­da state grand ju­ry re­turned an in­dict­ment against Steve Fer­gu­son, Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh and sev­er­al oth­ers. They were in­dict­ed on charges re­lat­ing to cor­rupt prac­tices in re­la­tion to CP 9 and CP 13 con­struc­tion pack­ages in the Pi­ar­co Air­port de­vel­op­ment project. Gal­barans­ingh and Fer­gu­son are charged with bid-rig­ging, wire fraud, con­spir­a­cy to en­gage in mon­ey laun­der­ing and mon­ey laun­der­ing in the build­ing of the $1.6 bil­lion Pi­ar­co Air­port ter­mi­nal build­ing.