For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen are both ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate to­mor­row morn­ing to an­swer charges aris­ing out of an al­leged le­gal fee kick­back scam at the AG’s of­fice dur­ing Ram­lo­gan’s tenure.

The two were joint­ly charged on Fri­day night with three charges re­lat­ing to the scam which al­leged­ly took place while Ram­lo­gan held the AG’s of­fice from 2010 to 2015.

Ram­lo­gan was ar­rest­ed on Wednes­day morn­ing by of­fi­cers of the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tion Bu­reau (ACIB) while at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port as he was about to board a flight to the British Vir­gin Is­lands to rep­re­sent a client in a court mat­ter. Ramdeen sur­ren­dered to ACIB of­fi­cers a few hours lat­er.

They were both in­ter­ro­gat­ed for hours by in­ves­ti­ga­tors over the 70-hour pe­ri­od that they were held be­fore be­ing charged.

Around 10.32 pm on Fri­day, Ram­lo­gan was grant­ed $1.2 mil­lion bail to cov­er his three charges while his co-ac­cused, Ramdeen was grant­ed $1.5 mil­lion bail.

El­der: The charges are on­ly con­spir­a­cies

Short­ly af­ter Ram­lo­gan se­cured his bail and was al­lowed to leave the ACIB of­fice in Port-of-Spain, his at­tor­ney Se­nior Coun­sel Pamela El­der told Guardian Me­dia that the charges against him were noth­ing more than a con­spir­a­cy.

"My client was sub­ject­ed to a very long in­ter­view, it has end­ed with him be­ing charged with three of­fences. What I find in­ter­est­ing is that all these of­fences are what we call in­choate of­fences, they are the on­ly con­spir­a­cies. There is noth­ing here in these charges that my client re­ceived any mon­ey. No mon­ey has been stat­ed here," El­der told Guardian Me­dia.

"It is on­ly a con­spir­a­cy and there is noth­ing in any of these charges with re­spect of any monies that were paid to Anand Ram­lo­gan, re­ceived by Anand Ram­lo­gan or trans­ferred by Anand Ram­lo­gan. In essence, it states that for five years he con­spired to re­ceive mon­ey but nev­er re­ceived a cent."

Charges against Ram­lo­gan & Ramdeen

* Con­spired with Vin­cent Nel­son to re­ceive, con­ceal and trans­fer crim­i­nal prop­er­ty, to with fi­nan­cial re­wards giv­en to the said Anand Ram­lo­gan by the said Vin­cent Nel­son, for the said Vin­cent Nel­son be­ing in­struct­ed as ad­vo­cate in var­i­ous mat­ters in which the State was in­ter­est­ed or which the State was the client.

* Con­spired with Vin­cent Nel­son to cor­rupt­ly re­ceive fi­nan­cial re­wards from the said Vin­cent Nel­son, be­ing in­struct­ed as ad­vo­cate in var­i­ous mat­ters in which the State was in­ter­est­ed or in which the State was client.

* Con­spired with Vin­cent Nel­son that the said Anand Ram­lo­gan mis­be­haved in the pub­lic of­fice of at­tor­ney gen­er­al by Anand Ram­lo­gan ac­cept­ing re­wards from Vin­cent Nel­son, for the said Vin­cent Nel­son be­ing in­struct­ed as ad­vo­cate in var­i­ous mat­ters in which the State was in­ter­est­ed or in which the State was client.