Try Ish, Steve in T&T.
Ken Ali (T&T Guardian).
Two British legal luminaries are sharing the views of Sir Ellis Clarke that businessmen Ishwar Galbaransingh and Steve Ferguson should face trial in Trinidad and Tobago. Andrew Mitchell, QC, and Michael Beloff, QC, have forwarded separate exhaustive legal advice to Attorney General Anand Ramlogan, advocating that the businessmen not be extradited to the United States.
The legal opinions of Mitchell and Beloff mesh with that of the eminent Sir Ellis, who recently stressed that Trinidad and Tobago is “the proper forum” for the trial of Galbaransingh and Ferguson. Galbaransingh and Ferguson are on trial with respect to public contracts for development of Piarco International Airport in the late 1990s.
The US authorities have been seeking to have the businessmen extradited to American soil to face separate trial. Beloff, named last year as one of the most influential attorneys in Britain, urged Ramlogan to refuse the extradition request of the US “on the grounds that it was not made in good faith.”
He stressed that “the correct forum for trial in this matter...is Trinidad and Tobago.” Mitchell, described as one of Britain’s pre-eminent attorneys, said “the proper forum is Trinidad and Tobago” and that the Attorney General “really has no option...”
He added: “To do otherwise would be unjust to all the accused in this case.” Such a move, he said, “would deprive the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago the right to follow and have an interest in the outcome of the matter. “It is, therefore, not in the public interest to extradite,” he added. Mitchell stated that the Extradition Act “contemplates the act of ‘return,’” He added that a decision to extradite in this case “is not so much a return...to the place where the alleged conduct was carried out.”
Instead, it is a case of sending Galbaransingh and Ferguson “to the place where consequential criminal allegations dependent on the proof of the primary conduct is to be tried and thus far away from the centre of main interest in the criminal matter,” Mitchell said.
He further stated that the issue of the proper forum for the trial was determined when, in 2005, an application was made for co-accused Eduardo Hillman-Waller, an American citizen, to be extradited to T&T. He said: “If further evidence were needed of the correct answer to the forum question...it is the decision of the authorities in Trinidad and Tobago to seek the extradition of Mr Hillman-Waller from the US.” Mitchell also argued that the issue “drives at the heart of the sovereignty of Trinidad and Tobago.”
He explained: “It is a decision which engages the right of the public to see and, if they wish, to go and visit a trial and see how the allegations play out in relation to the alleged abuse of taxpayers’ money.” He said that to deny this country the right to have the trial is “tantamount to accepting that there is no appropriate way of trying serious fraud allegations against the State in Trinidad and Tobago.”
Such a message, said Mitchell, “would send all the wrong messages at a time when the policy of the Government appears to be to bring to justice those who commit serious commercial wrongdoing.” He advised that the matter before the Attorney General should not be influenced by “political objectives or interference,” but “should be based on the principles of law and justice.”
Beloff also raised the Hillman-Waller example, saying it “must be considered as a highly material factor in making the current decision on the appropriate forum.” He stressed that “the only reasonable decision that can be reached is that Trinidad and Tobago is the appropriate forum for trial for Mr Ferguson and Mr Galbaransingh.”
About Andrew Mitchell, QC
Andrew Mitchell, QC, has a broad commercial and civil practice in Britain, with particular expertise in banking and financial services, civil fraud and commercial contracts. Mitchell has extensive courtroom experience and has won several prizes and scholarships. He has been described as “one of the UK’s most prominent fraud barristers.”
About Michael Beloff, QC
Michael Beloff, QC, has been dubbed the British bar’s “renaissance man” for his professional successes, hefty workload and work in academia. Beloff boasts a long and varied history of legal work, with more than 400 cases reported in legal reports, and has undertaken many lectures and written a number of publications. In 2008, Lord Bingham described him as “a most accomplished and much-sought-after advocate.” He was president of Trinity College at Oxford University for ten years.