State drops 10 fraud charges against lawyers

THE State yesterday dropped ten of the 11 charges against attorneys Ken Wight, Yaseen Ali, Mervyn Mitchell and bailor Patrick Hannibal on fraud charges, and amended the remaining indictment. Senior State attorney Wayne Rajbansie made the application to delete the ten charges and amend the other before defence attorney Theodore Guerra SC could have resumed his submission yesterday morning. The defence team, which included five of the Criminal Bar’s top Senior Counsel, were contending that the 11 indictments were duplicitous and oppressive. The defence team agreed to the deletion of the charges but asked for time to consider the amended indictment. They will return today to give their resolution on the amendment. The attorneys are before Justice Prakash Moosai in the Port-of-Spain Third Criminal Court charged with forging a deed in order to secure bail for Maximo Jose Gonzales, a Venezuelan who was in custody on drug trafficking charges. 

The amended ground now reads: “Ken Wright, Patrick Hannibal, Yaseen Ali and Mervyn Mitchell, between October 31 and December 25, 1996 in Trinidad, conspired together with other persons to pervert the course of public justice by falsely pretending that protocol of deed No 24346 of 1996 and 23919 of 1996 were good and valid documents and that the proprieties referred to in the same  protocol of deeds were owned by Shaamar Mackoon and Ramkissoon Singh respectively and Mackoon and Singh were entitled to use the same proprieties to secure bail for Maximo Jose Gonzales, the person in custody charged on indictment information No 17374 of 1996, and did use the same protocol of deeds to secure the release of the said Maximo Jose Gonzales from custody.” The defence in earlier submissions had also complained to the court that the first indictment, which is now amended, consisted of two charges. One was conspiracy and the other was forgery of the document.  

While asking for time to consider the amended charge, Osbourne Charles SC, another defence attorney, commended Rajbansie for his stewardship and management of the issues raised in the trial. Wright is being defended by Guerra, Pamela Elder SC and Gilbert Petersen SC. Israel Khan SC, Larry Lalla and Nadia Astraph instructed by Llewellyn Thompson are for Ali while Osbourne Charles SC and Ravi Rajcoomar are for Mitchell. Hannibal is being defended by Colin Selvon. No jury has yet been selected nor have the four accused been arraigned.