At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour plans to write to Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard and the heads of the Civ­il Law De­part­ment to deal with mat­ters con­cern­ing the op­er­a­tions of their re­spec­tive de­part­ments.

Mak­ing his fi­nal con­tri­bu­tions to the de­bate on the 2024 Bud­get in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, Ar­mour said he will in­vite them to meet on sev­er­al mat­ters, in­clud­ing a con­sul­tant re­port that re­sult­ed from a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the DPP, as well as the re­port on the in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the miss­ing case file in the Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man mur­der ac­cused mat­ter.

He said, “I will, this week, be writ­ing to the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al act­ing, the Chief State So­lic­i­tor, both of them be­ing heads of those two de­part­ments of the Civ­il Law De­part­ment, and the head of the Crim­i­nal Law De­part­ment, the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, to in­vite them to con­tin­ue to en­gage with me on these re­ports.

“I ad­vised pub­licly that I had ap­point­ed an in­ves­tiga­tive team of re­tired Mr Jus­tice Stan­ley John and re­tired head of the spe­cial branch Mrs Schullera Hinds. The fi­nal re­port is dat­ed June 2023 and has been hand­ed over to me ... The Stan­ley John re­port and this con­sul­tant re­port were placed by me be­fore the Cab­i­net on 19th Oc­to­ber 2023.”

The AG added, “Since my as­sump­tion in of­fice, it has al­so been in the pub­lic do­main that the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and I have en­gaged in dif­fer­ent re­spects. Out of the en­gage­ment and col­lab­o­ra­tion, there has emerged a con­sul­tant re­port with ref­er­ence to the Crim­i­nal Law De­part­ment au­thored by a well-re­spect­ed na­tion­al pub­lic ser­vant. Both the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and I have agreed to treat this process with ap­pro­pri­ate dis­cre­tion and con­fi­den­tial­i­ty.”

Sev­en years ago in 2016, nine men were ac­quit­ted of kid­nap­ping and mur­der­ing busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man. They were Sher­von Pe­ters, De­von Pe­ters, Joel Fras­er, Kei­da Gar­cia, Jameel Gar­cia, Mar­lon Trim­ming­ham, Ronald Arm­strong, An­tho­ny Gloster and An­to­nio Charles.

In 2020 and 2021, the at­tor­neys of the mur­der ac­cused filed a ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion law­suit which was sub­se­quent­ly award­ed in their favour.

In Jan­u­ary of this year, Supreme Court judge Martha Alexan­der award­ed the ac­cused a to­tal of $20 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion.

The AG had re­vealed that a case file went miss­ing dur­ing the case, re­sult­ing in the State’s fail­ure to file a de­fence in the civ­il ac­tion brought by the ac­cusers.

Re­tired jus­tice Nel­son was ap­point­ed to probe this and ad­vise the Gov­ern­ment on the next steps fol­low­ing the judg­ment. How­ev­er, the file was lat­er found.

Plans to rein­tro­duce bills

to fight crime

The AG al­so yes­ter­day re­vealed there may soon be some amend­ments and im­ple­men­ta­tion of sev­er­al crime laws in this coun­try, as he plans to rein­tro­duce the Bail Bill, a Con­trol Op­er­a­tions Bill, and Crim­i­nal Records Bill in Par­lia­ment in the up­com­ing leg­isla­tive year.

Ac­cord­ing to Ar­mour, these bills can as­sist law en­force­ment in com­bat­ting crime.

Ar­mour re­vealed his team is work­ing on re­fin­ing a com­pre­hen­sive bail re­form leg­isla­tive pack­age.

He said, “In ad­di­tion to firearms, the Gov­ern­ment has long iden­ti­fied bail re­stric­tions as a key mea­sure in the fight against crime. My of­fice is work­ing on and re­fin­ing a com­pre­hen­sive bail ref­or­ma­tion leg­isla­tive pack­age and has im­ple­ment­ed a mul­ti-pronged ap­proach by com­ple­tion of a pol­i­cy pa­per on bail for mur­der to align with the Privy Coun­cil de­ci­sion in Ak­ili Charles; a com­pre­hen­sive re­view of sec­tion five list of of­fences of the Bail Act; re­view of the source of funds and pro­ceeds pre­sent­ed to se­cure bail; a re­view of sureties with a view to bet­ter man­ag­ing pro­fes­sion­al bailors; and li­ais­ing with and re­ceiv­ing sug­ges­tions on bail re­form from one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s lead­ing crim­i­nol­o­gist. I am very keen to bring this bill back to Par­lia­ment.”

An­oth­er crit­i­cal tool in­tend­ed to bat­tle crime, he said, is the Con­trolled Op­er­a­tions Bill, which pro­vides for the au­tho­ri­sa­tion, con­duct and mon­i­tor­ing of con­trolled sting op­er­a­tions.

He said this bill can sig­nif­i­cant­ly as­sist law en­force­ment in com­bat­ting crimes such as mon­ey laun­der­ing, hu­man traf­fick­ing and the traf­fick­ing of drugs and firearms.