Privy Council clears way for $20MN payout for Naipaul-Coolman accused

DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

The Privy Coun­cil has cleared the way for nine men for­mer­ly ac­cused of the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man to re­ceive over $20 mil­lion for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion.

Last Thurs­day, Lords David Lloyd-Jones and David Richards, along with La­dy Vivien Rose, re­fused the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al per­mis­sion to pur­sue a fi­nal ap­peal over a judge's de­ci­sion to over­turn a de­fault judg­ment she grant­ed the men in 2021.

A no­tice con­firm­ing the de­ci­sion was post­ed on the Unit­ed King­dom-based ap­pel­late court's web­site yes­ter­day.

“The ap­pli­ca­tion does not raise a point of law of gen­er­al pub­lic im­por­tance,” the no­tice stat­ed.

In Jan­u­ary 2021, High Court Judge Joan Charles grant­ed the de­fault judg­ment sought by the group’s lawyers, led by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, af­ter the AG’s Of­fice failed to file a de­fence with­in the stip­u­lat­ed time.

There was pub­lic furore in ear­ly 2023 when High Court Mas­ter Martha Alexan­der found that the nine men should each re­ceive over $2.1 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion.

Speak­ing to me­dia per­son­nel af­ter ini­ti­at­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the case, for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, claimed that pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed the case file “dis­ap­peared” af­ter be­ing served on his min­istry.

Ar­mour said: “I would not al­low my­self at this time, be­cause of due process, to ut­ter what I think oc­curred, but it is sin­is­ter.”

Af­ter the in­ves­ti­ga­tion team of re­tired Judge Stan­ley John and re­tired As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Pamela Schullera-Hinds com­menced their probe, the file was re­port­ed­ly “re­turned” to the So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al’s Of­fice and hand­ed over.

While their fi­nal re­port was not pub­lished, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the duo made a num­ber of rec­om­men­da­tions, in­clud­ing a com­plete re­struc­tur­ing of the Civ­il Law De­part­ment (CLD) of the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs (AGLA).

In De­cem­ber 2023, Jus­tice Charles up­held an ap­pli­ca­tion from the AG’s Of­fice to set aside the de­fault judg­ment and the cor­re­spond­ing as­sess­ment of dam­ages, lead­ing to the ap­peal.

Jus­tice Charles’ rul­ing was over­turned on ap­peal.

The AG’s Of­fice sought con­di­tion­al leave to pur­sue a fi­nal ap­peal, but it was re­ject­ed in a ma­jor­i­ty rul­ing by the Ap­peal Court.

Ap­pel­late Judges Nolan Bereaux and Mark Mo­hammed agreed that the State should not be grant­ed per­mis­sion.

Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh, who was ap­point­ed Chief Jus­tice fol­low­ing the re­tire­ment of for­mer CJ Ivor Archie last year, pro­vid­ed a dis­sent­ing de­ci­sion, in which he ruled that he would have grant­ed per­mis­sion.

In his de­ci­sion, Jus­tice Bereaux re­ject­ed claims that the group’s case would have failed at tri­al if it was prop­er­ly de­fend­ed by the AG’s Of­fice.

“While they may have a heavy bur­den to dis­charge, it does not fol­low that the case is bound to fail,” Jus­tice Bereaux said.

He al­so stat­ed that the AG’s Of­fice was to blame for what tran­spired.

“There is no ex­cuse for per­mit­ting this case (one he al­leges is bound to fail) to pro­ceed to a de­fault judg­ment un­de­fend­ed and then to take an­oth­er three years or so be­fore at­tempt­ing to set it aside; and this on­ly af­ter a pub­lic out­cry about the quan­tum of dam­ages award­ed to the ap­pel­lants in the as­sess­ment of dam­ages—an as­sess­ment ex­er­cise which the re­spon­dent par­tic­i­pat­ed in and de­fend­ed dur­ing the three-year pe­ri­od,” he said.

“The ques­tion of ex­cep­tion­al­i­ty is re­al­ly one of ex­cep­tion­al fault on the part of the re­spon­dent,” he added.

In his de­ci­sion, CJ Boodoos­ingh re­spect­ful­ly dis­agreed with his col­leagues as he said that he would have al­lowed a fi­nal ap­peal.

“The ap­pel­lants will there­fore ben­e­fit from an es­sen­tial­ly $20 mil­lion plus wind­fall in­volv­ing pub­lic funds where, had a de­fence been al­lowed, the ap­pel­lants would have al­most cer­tain­ly not have suc­ceed­ed,” CJ Boodoos­ingh said.

The men were al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Ganesh Sa­roop of Free­dom Law Cham­bers. The AG’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Rol­ston Nel­son, SC, Ria Mo­hammed-David­son, and Ele­na Arau­jo.

About the Naipaul-Cool­man case

For­mer Xtra Food chief ex­ec­u­tive Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man was ab­duct­ed from her Ch­agua­nas home on De­cem­ber 19, 2006.

A $122,000 ran­som was paid by her fam­i­ly, but she was not re­leased, and her body was nev­er found.

Sher­von and De­von Pe­ters, their broth­er An­tho­ny Gloster, Joel Fras­er, Ronald Arm­strong, broth­ers Kei­da and Jameel Gar­cia, Mar­lon Trim­ming­ham, his broth­er Earl, Lyn­don Charles, Al­lan “Scan­ny” Mar­tin and An­to­nio Charles were even­tu­al­ly charged with the crime.

Dur­ing the tri­al be­fore for­mer High Court Judge and cur­rent Ap­pel­late Judge Mal­colm Holdip and a 12-mem­ber ju­ry, State pros­e­cu­tors con­tend­ed that Naipaul-Cool­man was held cap­tive in a house in Up­per La Puer­ta, Diego Mar­tin, be­fore she was killed and dis­mem­bered.

Through­out the tri­al, de­fence at­tor­neys point­ed out mul­ti­ple in­con­sis­ten­cies in the ev­i­dence. They ques­tioned the men­tal health of the State's main wit­ness, Keon Gloster, who claimed he was co­erced by po­lice in­to im­pli­cat­ing the ac­cused men. They al­so con­tend­ed that a gun linked to the kid­nap­ping crime scene was plant­ed in one of the ac­cused men's homes.

When the tri­al was at an ad­vanced stage, Mar­tin and two fel­low pris­on­ers at the Port-of-Spain State Prison staged a dar­ing es­cape dur­ing which a po­lice of­fi­cer was mur­dered. Mar­tin was shot and killed by po­lice in a shootout at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Fras­er was freed be­fore the ju­ry con­sid­ered the case, as Jus­tice Holdip up­held a no-case sub­mis­sion al­leg­ing that there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence link­ing him to the crime.

The tri­al end­ed in 2016 with the ju­ry ac­quit­ting eight of the men and or­der­ing a re­tri­al for Earl Trim­ming­ham and Lyn­don Charles.