DEREK ACHONG

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A busi­ness­woman from Princes Town, who sued the State for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion af­ter she was charged with hu­man traf­fick­ing weeks af­ter her hus­band was mur­dered in 2015, will have to wait a while longer be­fore she learns the fate of her case.

Dur­ing a hy­brid hear­ing of Alana La­gan’s case at the San Fer­nan­do High Court on Mon­day, Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad grant­ed an ex­ten­sion for the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to file a de­fence.

La­gan’s le­gal team, led by at­tor­ney Jagdeo Singh, was ini­tial­ly ap­ply­ing for a de­fault judge­ment in the case af­ter the AG’s Of­fice missed the ini­tial dead­line for fil­ing, but did op­pose the ap­pli­ca­tion for an ex­ten­sion.

How­ev­er, Singh stat­ed that the State at­tor­neys’ claim that their de­lay was due to is­sues with con­tact­ing the po­lice of­fi­cers who charged La­gan was un­ac­cept­able.

“In so­ci­ety, there is the gen­er­al mis­con­cep­tion that we on­ly have rights and not cor­re­spond­ing oblig­a­tions,” Singh said.

Al­though Jus­tice Seep­er­sad agreed to grant the ad­journ­ment, he stat­ed that in­ad­ver­tence and ad­min­is­tra­tive hic­cups by the State were not a valid jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for it.

“It is re­al­ly un­ac­cept­able that af­ter 60 years of in­de­pen­dence, we still re­al­ly need to have co­he­sion be­tween all the arms of the State,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said.

He not­ed that the al­leged re­fusal of the of­fi­cer to re­spond to the State at­tor­neys’ re­quest high­light­ed “in­sti­tu­tion­al dys­func­tion” and the gen­er­al un­law­ful­ness of so­ci­ety.

State at­tor­ney Nairob Smart ac­cept­ed the crit­i­cism but claimed he and his col­leagues were pow­er­less to ad­dress it.

“Those process­es will take time and po­lit­i­cal will,” Smart said.

Ac­cord­ing to La­gan’s court fil­ings, in May 2015, the moth­er of four, who op­er­ates a chain of burg­er carts which bears her in-laws’ name, was charged with re­ceiv­ing two Guyanese na­tion­als for the pur­pose of ex­ploita­tion.

La­gan made al­most two dozen court ap­pear­ances be­fore the charges were dis­missed by Mag­is­trate Rae Roopc­hand in Ju­ly 2019.

In their case, La­gan’s at­tor­neys sought to give a syn­op­sis of what tran­spired be­fore she was charged.

They claimed that in late 2014, the cou­ple she was even­tu­al­ly charged with ex­ploit­ing came to Trinidad and stayed at her home. They claimed that sev­er­al months lat­er, she no­ticed that $8,600 was miss­ing from a desk in her home and she sus­pect­ed her fe­male house­guest.

La­gan re­port­ed the in­ci­dent to the po­lice, who ques­tioned her and her friend.

The woman claimed that while stay­ing with the fam­i­ly, she be­gan a sex­u­al re­la­tion­ship with La­gan’s hus­band Rishi Cha­toor. She claimed that Cha­toor false­ly ac­cused her of steal­ing the mon­ey af­ter she at­tempt­ed to end the re­la­tion­ship.

Af­ter the cou­ple moved out of the house fol­low­ing the re­port, po­lice ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant at La­gan’s home.

La­gan claimed that al­though the of­fi­cers did not find any­thing il­le­gal, her hus­band was even­tu­al­ly charged with firearm and am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion.

On May 23, 2016, 32-year-old Cha­toor and an­oth­er man were mur­dered in a shoot­ing at a bar in Princes Town.

Cha­toor’s mur­der came al­most ex­act­ly a decade af­ter his fa­ther Har­ry was killed dur­ing a home in­va­sion.

Cha­toor was a wit­ness in the case of two men, who were even­tu­al­ly con­vict­ed of felony mur­der for his fa­ther’s killing and sen­tenced to al­most 15 years in prison.

In 2018, Cha­toor’s old­er broth­er Nari, who al­so worked in the fam­i­ly busi­ness, was killed by a hit­man, who pre­tend­ed to be a cus­tomer.

In her law­suit against the State, La­gan is claim­ing that po­lice did not have rea­son­able or prob­a­ble cause to charge her and act­ed with mal­ice.

Through the case, La­gan is seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for the em­bar­rass­ment and hu­mil­i­a­tion she suf­fered, as she was ar­rest­ed in front of friends and rel­a­tives who were at­tend­ing a re­li­gious cer­e­mo­ny at her home af­ter her hus­band’s death.

“She felt as though she had dis­ap­point­ed her­self and her fam­i­ly and has even con­tem­plat­ed sui­cide at times,” her lawyers claimed.

She claimed that be­fore be­ing charged, the fam­i­ly busi­ness was thriv­ing with 30 em­ploy­ees at five branch­es in Matil­da, Princes Town, Mara­bel­la, Pe­nal and To­ba­go.

She said she was forced to close all but one of the branch­es, as busi­ness slowed down while she was be­ing pros­e­cut­ed.

She is seek­ing to re­coup the $30,000 in le­gal fees she ex­pend­ed in de­fend­ing the charges and $23,000 for a fam­i­ly va­ca­tion in the Unit­ed States, which had to be can­celled in 2019 af­ter her and her chil­dren’s visas were can­celled due to the charges.

La­gan is al­so seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for false im­pris­on­ment over the short pe­ri­od she spent on re­mand be­fore ac­cess­ing bail.

La­gan is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Vashisht Seep­er­sad and Richard Jag­gasar. Mary Davis is ap­pear­ing along­side Smart for the State.