Gail ALexan­der

The mys­tery of the “miss­ing” Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man law­suit file deep­ened yes­ter­day, af­ter it was mys­te­ri­ous­ly found.

This was con­firmed last night in a me­dia state­ment from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice. It was is­sued by lead in­ves­ti­ga­tor in­to the is­sue of the miss­ing file, Jus­tice Stan­ley John (re­tired).

John and Jus­tice Rol­ston Nel­son were hired last week to in­ves­ti­gate the dis­ap­pear­ance of the miss­ing file, which is said to be the rea­son the state failed to mount a de­fence in a mat­ter brought the nine for­mer ac­cused in the Naipaul-Cool­man kid­nap­ping/mur­der case.

That mat­ter in­volved a claim for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion mount­ed by the men, who won over $20 mil­lion, or $2.1m each, in a de­fault judg­ment in court last week.

Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour held a brief­ing, where he re­vealed that the file went miss­ing al­most im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the claim mat­ter was served on the AG’s Of­fice in 2020. He then an­nounced John and Nel­son would probe the mat­ter.

Last night, the re­lease from John, via the min­istry, stat­ed, “In my ca­pac­i­ty as the Lead In­ves­ti­ga­tor in­to the cap­tioned sub­ject mat­ter with par­tic­u­lar ref­er­ence in the dis­ap­pear­ance of the file in CV 2020 -01243, I was this evening: the 6th of Feb­ru­ary in­formed by the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al (Ag) Ms Kar­leen Seenath that the file in ques­tion was to­day hand­ed over to her.

“I have im­me­di­ate­ly in­struct­ed that the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al (Ag) se­cure that file for col­lec­tion by the In­ves­ti­ga­tion team, the re-ap­pear­ance of this file forms part of the con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

The re­lease gave no oth­er de­tails on who re­turned the file or whether it was found with­in the of­fice or ex­ter­nal­ly.

The de­vel­op­ment broke as Op­po­si­tion UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last night re­vealed she’d writ­ten Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie call­ing for the Ju­di­cia­ry to clear the air and not to “par­tic­i­pate in that sham cov­er-up in­ves­ti­ga­tion” of the file, and al­so clear the name of Judge Karen Reid-Bal­lan­tyne, who was in the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al’s Of­fice at the time the mat­ter was be­ing dealt with.

Speak­ing in Pe­nal at Mon­day Night meet­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so called on the TTPS to get in­volved in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the “Miss­ing File” and not leave it to John and Nel­son alone.

She said she was hap­py for Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, who’d done the case for the nine for­mer ac­cused, and dis­missed the in­sin­u­a­tion that Ram­lo­gan may have been par­ty to the file’s “dis­ap­pear­ance.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ques­tioned how, even though the file was miss­ing, a sub­mis­sion was made by the state. She then not­ed that last Fri­day, AG Ar­mour said no sub­mis­sion was made.

“They can’t even keep track of their own lies. That 20 mil­lion will stick on him like le­gal Evo Stick,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“He’s mak­ing Faris Al-Rawi look good—the laugh­ing stock of the le­gal pro­fes­sion! What are his Law As­so­ci­a­tion friends say­ing now when there’s neg­li­gence and dere­lic­tion of du­ty in the AG’s Of­fice? They’re numb and dumb!

“I’m call­ing on the Law as­so­ci­a­tion, open your mouths and talk be­cause your tax dol­lars are in that $20 mil­lion al­so!”

Say­ing the file is a mys­tery and al­so a lie, Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed re­ports on the time­line of the is­sue and the op­por­tu­ni­ties the AG’s Of­fice would have had to in­ter­vene.

More wor­ri­some, she said, is that for­mer lawyer in the AG’s of­fice—Reid-Bal­lan­tyne—is now a judge, but as an at­tor­ney in the AG’s Of­fice Reid-Bal­lan­tyne had made as­sess­ments of dam­ages in the case “... when there was no file?”

She called on the Ju­di­cia­ry to clear Reid-Bal­lan­tyne’s name.

She said she told the CJ in her let­ter that it wasn’t nec­es­sary to es­ca­late the mat­ter to a for­mal com­plaint to the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion, as she was con­fi­dent of the CJ’s prompt re­sponse.

But she said the Ju­di­cia­ry and Judge should be care­ful they didn’t in any way par­tic­i­pate in val­i­dat­ing and le­git­imis­ing this “po­lit­i­cal­ly con­ve­nient in­ves­ti­ga­tion de­signed for dam­age con­trol for the Gov­ern­ment.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on the Ju­di­cia­ry to is­sue a state­ment to en­sure there is no breach in the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers.

She al­so said the UNC had de­cid­ed last Fri­day to sup­port Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher for Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and wished her the best.

“It won’t be an easy job, crime’s at an all-time high... I trust Gov­ern­ment gives her the re­sources she needs. Good luck Miss Er­la, we’re proud of you,” she said.