Derek Achong

A mix-up in serv­ing doc­u­ments. This is the ex­pla­na­tion giv­en by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for the out­come of a $20 mil­lion ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion law­suit brought by nine men for­mer­ly ac­cused of the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man. 

The sug­ges­tion that the court fil­ings in the case were served on the wrong de­part­ment of the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs was made by the Le­gal Di­rec­tor of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Sec­re­tari­at Te­nille Ramkissoon in a re­cent ap­pli­ca­tion filed to set aside the de­fault judg­ment that was ob­tained by the men and the cor­re­spond­ing $20 mil­lion com­pen­sa­tion for them that was as­sessed by High Court Mas­ter Martha Alexan­der on Jan­u­ary 30. 

In the court fil­ings ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Ramkissoon claimed that af­ter the case was filed by the group’s le­gal team led by Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan, of Free­dom Law Cham­bers, on May 29, 2020, it was served on State Coun­sel 111 Na­toya Moore, of the Of­fice of the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al, al­most a month lat­er. 

She claimed that af­ter no ap­pear­ance or de­fence was en­tered by the State, the group’s le­gal team ap­plied for the de­fault judg­ment be­fore Jus­tice Joan Charles on Au­gust 5, 2020. 

Attorney Anand Ramlogan, SC

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

The ap­pli­ca­tion was served on act­ing Court Clerk 1 Sarah Chin­wasa at the Chief State So­lic­i­tor’s De­part­ment on No­vem­ber 12, 2020. 

On the same date, the Court Of­fice is­sued a no­tice of hear­ing to the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al. How­ev­er, the no­tice was served on act­ing Court Clerk 1 Shan­ice Par­ris at the Chief State So­lic­i­tor’s De­part­ment al­most a week lat­er. 

The AG’s Of­fice was not rep­re­sent­ed at the hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Charles, who grant­ed the de­fault judg­ment to the group on Jan­u­ary 8, 2021. 

In the ap­pli­ca­tion, Ramkissoon sug­gest­ed that the de­fault judg­ment should be set aside as it was ir­reg­u­lar and wrong­ly en­tered be­cause it was im­prop­er­ly served on the Chief State So­lic­i­tor’s De­part­ment. She point­ed to Sec­tion 20 (1) of the State Li­a­bil­i­ty and Pro­ceed­ings Act, which states that lit­i­ga­tion against the State should be served on the AG’s Of­fice through the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al or per­son­nel that are des­ig­nat­ed through a no­tice in the Gazette. 

“There is no pro­vi­sion in law for ser­vice of doc­u­ments in civ­il pro­ceed­ings to be ef­fect­ed on the Chief State So­lic­i­tor’s De­part­ment or em­ploy­ees of this De­part­ment. There was no at­tor­ney on record from the Chief State So­lic­i­tor’s De­part­ment who could ac­cept ser­vice of doc­u­ments in this mat­ter,” Ramkissoon said. 

“The Claimant’s fail­ure to com­ply with the le­gal rules gov­ern­ing ser­vice on the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al means that the judg­ment en­tered against the De­fen­dant in de­fault of de­fence is ir­reg­u­lar, wrong­ly en­tered and must be set aside,” she added. 

A le­gal source, with ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence in fil­ing and lit­i­gat­ing law­suits against the State and who had sight of the ap­pli­ca­tion, ques­tioned Ramkissoon’s sug­ges­tions on the ser­vice of the case. 

He point­ed out that when they and their staff serve court doc­u­ments on the min­istry, they (the doc­u­ments) are usu­al­ly served on the min­istry’s le­gal staff, who are con­tact­ed by its se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers. 

He claimed that se­nior state at­tor­neys such as Moore, who may not be of­fi­cial­ly des­ig­nat­ed, would nor­mal­ly re­ceive the doc­u­ments and trans­fer them to the ap­pro­pri­ate de­part­ment or of­fi­cial. 

“We do not get to pick who comes down­stairs to re­ceive the doc­u­ments,” the source said. 

Vindra Naipaul-Coolman

State: Judge wrong to grant de­fault judg­ment in eight-minute hear­ing

In the ap­pli­ca­tion, Ramkissoon al­so claimed that Jus­tice Charles should not have grant­ed the de­fault judg­ment ap­pli­ca­tion in the eight-minute hear­ing be­fore her. 

Stat­ing that de­ter­min­ing such an ap­pli­ca­tion is not a rou­tine ad­min­is­tra­tive mat­ter, Ramkissoon said, “The learned judge did not en­gage in any ex­er­cise of ju­di­cial dis­cre­tion and did not prop­er­ly eval­u­ate the ma­te­r­i­al placed be­fore her.” 

She con­tend­ed that Jus­tice Charles did not con­sid­er that one of the men’s cas­es might have been statute-barred or that the group’s le­gal team al­leged­ly mis­cal­cu­lat­ed the dead­line for the State to file its de­fence. 

“The judg­ment en­tered against the De­fen­dant in de­fault of de­fence should be set aside be­cause the De­fen­dant act­ed as soon as rea­son­ably prac­ti­ca­ble and has a strong de­fence with a re­al­is­tic prospect of suc­cess,” she said. 

She main­tained that the AG’s Of­fice had a strong de­fence to the case that is more than “mere­ly ar­guable.”

“In par­tic­u­lar, the Claimants have not dis­charged the bur­den of show­ing there was an ab­sence of rea­son­able and prob­a­ble cause or the pros­e­cu­tion was ac­tu­at­ed by mal­ice,” Ramkissoon said. 

“The charges against the Claimants were ful­ly ven­ti­lat­ed through the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. There was a pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry, com­mit­tal to stand tri­al and in­dict­ments filed by the DPP.”

State: High Court Mas­ter con­flat­ed for­mer ac­cused ev­i­dence

Ramkissoon al­so took aim at Mas­ter Alexan­der’s han­dling of the as­sess­ment of the dam­ages for the group, which she not­ed was not or­dered by Jus­tice Charles when she grant­ed the de­fault judg­ment. 

Stat­ing that Mas­ter Alexan­der made sev­er­al er­rors of law and fact, Ramkissoon claimed that she erred by ap­ply­ing the spe­cif­ic med­ical ev­i­dence of the psy­cho­log­i­cal ef­fects of be­ing on re­mand for a lengthy pe­ri­od re­lat­ed to one of the men to his for­mer co-ac­cused. 

In de­cid­ing to award ap­prox­i­mate­ly $2.1 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion for each of the men, Mas­ter Alexan­der said, “In the view of the court, if each claimant suf­fered the same ex­pe­ri­ences, al­most si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, and gave ev­i­dence to that ef­fect, this is not demon­stra­tive of col­lu­sion but rather of a fac­tu­al sim­i­lar­i­ty of cir­cum­stances en­ti­tling each of com­pen­sa­tion.

“In fact, the wit­ness state­ments might have sim­i­lar con­tents, based on their sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ences, but these were ex­pressed dif­fer­ent­ly, with some claimants fo­cus­ing on the ex­treme heat, foul smells, and cramped, un­san­i­tary con­di­tions and how those af­fect­ed their si­nus­es and oth­er health is­sues.”

How­ev­er, Ramkissoon sug­gest­ed that Mas­ter Alexan­der was re­quired to con­sid­er each of the men’s cas­es in­di­vid­u­al­ly. 

“The learned Mas­ter erred in treat­ing all the ma­te­r­i­al col­lec­tive­ly and hold­ing that the ev­i­dence of the First Claimant was to be tak­en as rep­re­sen­ta­tive of all the Claimants,” Ramkissoon said. 

She al­so point­ed out that Mas­ter Alexan­der did not have the ju­ris­dic­tion to award ex­em­plary dam­ages to An­tho­ny Gloster, who was mur­dered in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing in Diego Mar­tin in late 2021 and whose fa­ther was al­lowed to con­tin­ue the case on his be­half. 

Ramkissoon re­ferred to Sec­tion 27(2)(a) of the Supreme Court of Ju­di­ca­ture Act, which pre­cludes claims for ex­em­plary dam­ages in cas­es where a lit­i­gant dies and the case is al­lowed to pro­ceed with a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the de­ceased’s es­tate. 

Ramkissoon sug­gest­ed that if the de­fault judg­ment and as­sess­ment of dam­ages are not set aside, the rule of law and ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice would be un­der­mined. 

“It would ex­pose the De­fen­dant to li­a­bil­i­ty in dam­ages for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion when­ev­er an ac­cused per­son is ac­quit­ted by a ju­ry...It would al­so al­low size­able awards of dam­ages to be made on the ba­sis of col­lec­tive, rather than in­di­vid­u­alised, ev­i­dence from lit­i­gants,” she said. 

AG was in the dark about case be­fore as­sess­ment of dam­ages

Ramkissoon al­so main­tained that At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, on­ly be­came aware of the case and what tran­spired af­ter re­ports of Mas­ter Alexan­der’s judg­ment were pub­lished. 

“He (Ar­mour) act­ed with ex­pe­di­tion by es­tab­lish­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter, ob­tain­ing le­gal ad­vice on the op­tions avail­able to the State and fil­ing the in­stant ap­pli­ca­tion,” she said. 

Speak­ing to me­dia per­son­nel af­ter ini­ti­at­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the case in ear­ly Feb­ru­ary, Ar­mour claimed that pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed that the case file “dis­ap­peared” af­ter be­ing served on his min­istry. 

Ar­mour said, “I would not al­low my­self at this time, be­cause of due process, to ut­ter what I think oc­curred but it is sin­is­ter.”

Af­ter the in­ves­ti­ga­tion team of re­tired Judge Stan­ley John and re­tired as­sis­tant com­mis­sion­er of po­lice (ACP) Pamela Schullera-Hinds com­menced their probe, the file was “re­turned” to the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al’s Of­fice and hand­ed over. 

How­ev­er, a le­gal source ques­tioned the sug­ges­tion over the State’s lack of knowl­edge of what tran­spired in the case, as he point­ed out that for­mer as­sis­tant so­lic­i­tor gen­er­al Karen Reid-Bal­lan­tyne, who rep­re­sent­ed the AG’s Of­fice in the pro­ceed­ings be­fore Mas­ter Alexan­der and has sub­se­quent­ly been ap­point­ed a High Court Judge, rec­om­mend­ed that the men be paid $1.2 mil­lion each in­stead of the $3.5 mil­lion each they were ini­tial­ly claim­ing. 

“There is ab­solute­ly no way that she (Reid-Bal­lan­tyne) would do so with­out in­struc­tions as to a ne­go­ti­at­ing range from the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al,” the source said. 

The source took is­sue with the tim­ing of the ap­pli­ca­tion to set aside as he sug­gest­ed that such a process should have been en­gaged be­fore the AG’s Of­fice par­tic­i­pat­ed in the as­sess­ment of dam­ages phase of the lit­i­ga­tion. 

About the Naipaul-Cool­man’s case

Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man was ab­duct­ed from her Ch­agua­nas home on De­cem­ber 19, 2006. 

A $122,000 ran­som was paid by her fam­i­ly but she was not re­leased and her body was nev­er found.

Sher­von and De­von Pe­ters, their broth­er An­tho­ny Gloster, Joel Fras­er, Ronald Arm­strong, broth­ers Kei­da and Jameel Gar­cia, Mar­lon Trim­ming­ham, his broth­er Earl, Lyn­don Charles, Al­lan “Scan­ny” Mar­tin and An­to­nio Charles were even­tu­al­ly charged with the crime

Dur­ing the tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Mal­colm Holdip and a 12-mem­ber ju­ry, state pros­e­cu­tors con­tend­ed that the for­mer Xtra Foods chief ex­ec­u­tive was held cap­tive in a house in Up­per La Puer­ta, Diego Mar­tin, be­fore she was killed and dis­mem­bered.

Through­out the tri­al, de­fence at­tor­neys point­ed out mul­ti­ple in­con­sis­ten­cies in the ev­i­dence. 

They ques­tioned the men­tal health of the State’s main wit­ness Keon Gloster, who claimed that he was co­erced by po­lice in­to im­pli­cat­ing the ac­cused men. They al­so con­tend­ed that a gun linked to the kid­nap­ping crime scene was plant­ed in one of the ac­cused men’s homes.

When the tri­al was at an ad­vanced stage, Mar­tin and two fel­low pris­on­ers at the Port-of-Spain State Prison staged a dar­ing es­cape dur­ing which a po­lice of­fi­cer was mur­dered. Mar­tin was shot and killed by po­lice in a shoot-out at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. 

Fras­er was freed be­fore the ju­ry con­sid­ered the case as Jus­tice Holdip up­held a no-case sub­mis­sion al­leg­ing that there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence link­ing him to the crime. 

The tri­al end­ed in 2016 with the ju­ry ac­quit­ting eight of the men and or­der­ing a re­tri­al for Earl Trim­ming­ham and Lyn­don Charles. 

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ar­mour de­clined to com­ment on the case and re­ferred to a press re­lease on the in­ter­im in­ves­tiga­tive re­port de­liv­ered by re­tired Jus­tice Stan­ley John.