Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

King’s Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son’s on­ly hope of set­ting aside his con­vic­tions for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in an al­leged le­gal fee kick­back scheme now rests with the Privy Coun­cil.

But Nel­son will have to first con­vince the British Law Lords to al­low him to mount a fi­nal ap­peal on the is­sue be­fore it (an ap­peal) is pos­si­bly heard, as he was de­nied con­di­tion­al leave by the Court of Ap­peal yes­ter­day.

In a de­ci­sion yes­ter­day morn­ing, Ap­pel­late Judges Nolan Bereaux, James Aboud and Ricky Rahim stat­ed that there was no is­sue that Nel­son could raise over breach­es of his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights stem­ming from the de­ci­sion of the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) to pros­e­cute him along­side for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, and at­tor­ney Ger­ald Ramdeen.

In Ju­ly, the Ap­peal Court ruled that Nel­son de­layed in bring­ing the chal­lenge af­ter he plead­ed guilty to a string of cor­rup­tion of­fences and was sen­tenced in 2019.

It al­so not­ed that Nel­son had ad­e­quate le­gal coun­sel be­fore he agreed to en­ter in­to the plea agree­ment and it was ap­proved by a High Court Judge.

In Oc­to­ber 2017, Nel­son pro­vid­ed a no­tarised state­ment in which he claimed that Ram­lo­gan had de­mand­ed that he pay him ten per cent of the le­gal fees he re­ceived for rep­re­sent­ing the State and State com­pa­nies dur­ing Ram­lo­gan’s tenure be­tween 2010 and 2015.

He claimed that at­tor­ney Ramdeen served as the in­ter­me­di­ary by al­leged­ly col­lect­ing the funds and pay­ing it over to Ram­lo­gan.

Al­most a month lat­er, Nel­son en­tered in­to an in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment with for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi.

In the doc­u­ment, Al-Rawi, as the le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Gov­ern­ment, agreed that Nel­son’s state­ment would not be re­leased in­to the pub­lic do­main, in­clud­ing through Par­lia­men­tary de­bate.

While it stat­ed that the state­ment would be dis­closed to the DPP’s Of­fice and the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tion Bu­reau (ACIB), it not­ed it would not be dis­closed to pros­e­cut­ing, tax en­force­ment, reg­u­la­to­ry or dis­ci­pli­nary au­thor­i­ties out­side of T&T.

It al­so promised that no civ­il lit­i­ga­tion to re­coup the le­gal fees al­ready paid to him would be tak­en.

Al-Rawi al­so agreed to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions to the DPP’s Of­fice for him not to be pros­e­cut­ed.

The agree­ment al­so sought to in­dem­ni­fy Nel­son from any lit­i­ga­tion over the al­le­ga­tions con­tained in the state­ment, which it ac­knowl­edged may be chal­lenged for defama­tion.

It al­so cov­ered any le­gal costs Nel­son would in­cur from the pros­e­cu­tion of Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen.

In 2019, Ram­lo­gan, Ramdeen, and Nel­son were charged with con­spir­ing to­geth­er to re­ceive, con­ceal and trans­fer crim­i­nal prop­er­ty name­ly the re­wards giv­en to Ram­lo­gan by Nel­son for be­ing ap­point­ed to rep­re­sent the State in sev­er­al cas­es; of con­spir­ing to­geth­er to cor­rupt­ly give Ram­lo­gan a per­cent­age of the funds and of con­spir­ing with to make Ram­lo­gan mis­be­have in pub­lic of­fice by re­ceiv­ing the funds.

Short­ly af­ter be­ing charged, Nel­son en­tered in­to a plea agree­ment with the DPP’s Of­fice in ex­change for his tes­ti­mo­ny against Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen.

In March 2020, High Court Judge Mal­colm Holdip up­held the plea agree­ment and is­sued a to­tal of $2.25 mil­lion in fines to Nel­son for his role in the al­leged con­spir­a­cy.

Un­der his plea agree­ment, the con­spir­a­cy to com­mit mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice charge was dropped and he was fined for the oth­er two of­fences.

As part of his sen­tence, Holdip said that Nel­son, who had been in pro­tec­tive cus­tody dur­ing his vis­its to Trinidad for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and sen­tenc­ing, was free to re­turn to the Unit­ed King­dom while he cleared the fines un­der a ten-month court-ap­proved pay­ment plan.

He was al­so placed on a $250,000 bond to keep the peace for three years.

Nel­son then sued the State, as he al­leged that it breached the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment with Al-Rawi un­der which he ini­tial­ly agreed to im­pli­cate Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen.

He point­ed out that his state­ment im­pli­cat­ing Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen was shared with the Unit­ed King­dom’s Na­tion­al Crime Agency (NCA), which ini­ti­at­ed a probe in­to him be­fore ced­ing ju­ris­dic­tion to lo­cal law en­force­ment of­fi­cials.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the case, which is un­der court seal, was dis­missed by a High Court Judge ear­li­er this year and is cur­rent­ly be­ing ap­pealed. He al­so filed the case over his con­vic­tions that were dis­missed by both the High Court and Court of Ap­peal.

In Oc­to­ber 2022, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, was forced to dis­con­tin­ue the cor­rup­tion case against Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen due to Nel­son’s un­will­ing­ness to tes­ti­fy while his law­suit and ap­peal are be­ing de­ter­mined.

“The State is of the view that it would be un­fair to leave the case against these de­fen­dants in lim­bo pend­ing the out­come of the civ­il claim when there is no date for its con­clu­sion,” Gas­pard said at the time.

DPP Gas­pard stat­ed that the charges may be re­filed if Nel­son’s po­si­tion changes. How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted that he (Nel­son) can­not be ex­tra­dit­ed.

Nel­son was rep­re­sent­ed by Ed­ward Fitzger­ald, KC, Naveen Maraj, Varun De­bideen. The DPP’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Ian Ben­jamin, SC, Tekiyah Jorsling, and Tonya Row­ley.