To­ba­go busi­ness mag­nate Al­lan Warn­er has de­nied en­gag­ing in il­le­gal min­ing. Warn­er, 74, the founder of the Warn­er Group of Com­pa­nies, plead­ed not guilty to pro­cess­ing ag­gre­gate with­out a li­cence yes­ter­day morn­ing, as he made his first court ap­pear­ance be­fore Mag­is­trate Avion Gill since be­ing charged and grant­ed $100,000 bail al­most two weeks ago.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) An­ju Bho­la ap­plied for his case to be joined to that of his son Aluko and sev­en em­ploy­ees and as­so­ciates, who were charged with the same of­fence in May. The ap­pli­ca­tion was re­sist­ed by Warn­er’s lawyer, Pamela El­der, SC, who point­ed out that the DPP’s Of­fice was yet to dis­close ev­i­dence against the men, which could be used to jus­ti­fy the fus­ing of the cas­es.

Bho­la ac­cept­ed the po­si­tion as she agreed to make the nec­es­sary dis­clo­sure by the dead­lines set by Mag­is­trate Gill and then reap­ply to join the cas­es. Both cas­es were ad­journed to Sep­tem­ber 27.

The charges stem from a raid on a prop­er­ty in Waller­field, con­trolled by one of the com­pa­nies owned by Warn­er and his fam­i­ly, on May 2. Po­lice seized heavy equip­ment on the site and com­mu­ni­ca­tion de­vices from the men.

Warn­er’s son; em­ploy­ees Robert Wil­son, Ricky Joseph, Corey Charles, and Shas­tri Mad­hoo; and in­de­pen­dent con­trac­tors Rueben Mapran­gala, De­on George, and Ki­mal Williams were joint­ly charged un­der Sec­tion 45(1)(a) of the Min­er­als Act. They all plead­ed not guilty dur­ing a pre­vi­ous hear­ing.

The leg­is­la­tion makes it an of­fence to mine or process ma­te­r­i­al with­out a li­cence and car­ries a $200,000 fine and im­pris­on­ment for two years up­on con­vic­tion. Five of Warn­er’s com­pa­nies, Warns Quar­ry Com­pa­ny Ltd, Warn­er Con­struc­tion and San­i­ta­tion Ltd, In­ez In­vest­ments Ltd, Pres-T-Con 2021 Ltd, and All­crete Ltd, his son, the sev­en men he is joint­ly charged with, and four oth­er em­ploy­ees who were ar­rest­ed and charged at a lo­ca­tion in San­gre Grande in De­cem­ber last year, have filed a nov­el law­suit chal­leng­ing the on­go­ing probe by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

When the case came up for hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad ear­li­er this week, they pre­sent­ed an in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion seek­ing the re­lease of heavy equip­ment seized in De­cem­ber and May, as well as the com­mu­ni­ca­tion de­vices. They al­so re­ject­ed the re­lease of the 16.67-hectare par­cel of land in Waller­field that was com­man­deered by the po­lice as part of their probe. At­tached to the claim was a li­cence grant­ed by the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries on June 18 to Warns Quar­ry, giv­ing it con­di­tion­al au­tho­ri­sa­tion to un­der­take min­er­al pro­cess­ing at the Waller­field prop­er­ty un­til the end of next year.

In re­sponse to the law­suit and in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion, the act­ing DPP, Joan Honare-Paul, SC, filed an af­fi­davit. In the doc­u­ment, Honare-Paul said she could not ful­ly re­spond to the al­le­ga­tions in the law­suit and in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion as the probe was still on­go­ing and at a sen­si­tive stage, de­spite peo­ple al­ready be­ing charged.

She point­ed out that some of the items, which the group re­quest­ed the re­lease of, may be used as ev­i­dence in the ex­ist­ing cas­es. She not­ed that the DPP’s Of­fice was not di­rect­ly in­volved in the probe and mere­ly gave ad­vice to in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

“I am un­able to go in­to the spe­cif­ic de­tails of the ad­vice sought and the DPP’s Of­fice re­spons­es since such will re­veal the di­rec­tion of the con­tin­ued in­ves­ti­ga­tions and may un­fair­ly prej­u­dice the TTPS’s ef­forts,” she said.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad is ex­pect­ed to rule on the in­junc­tion on Au­gust 20. Warn­er’s son and his co-ac­cused were rep­re­sent­ed by Sal­liann Holdip and Farai Hove Ma­sai­sai.