Defence wants fraud charge against lawyers to be quashed

ATTORNEYS FOR three lawyers  and a bailor charged with fraud yesterday rejected a proposed amendment of the charge by the prosecution, claiming that instead of “clearing the situation it compounded the error.” Israel Khan SC,  who is representing attorney Yaseen Ali, called for the indictment against his client to be quashed on the ground that there is no evidence to support the charge of conspiracy to pervert the course of public justice against Ali. Joining Khan in that call was Colin Selvon, who is representing bailor Patrick Hannibal. Ali, Hannibal and attorneys Mervyn Mitchell and Ken Wright are before Justice Prakash Moosai in the Port-of-Spain Third Criminal Court where submissions are being made on a motion to quash the indictment against the accused.

The defence team, which includes five senior counsels, succeeded in getting senior State prosecutor Wayne Rajbansie to drop ten of the 11 charges against the accused on the ground that the indictments were “overloaded.” Rajbansie had amended the remaining ground, but that too was rejected by the defence. Khan made a disclosure about one of the State’s  witnesses and at the end of yesterday’s hearing, Rajbansie asked for an adjournment to Monday to consider the  submissions and to track down documents mentioned by Khan. Khan’s argument was that since there is no evidence of conspiracy against Ali, the only charge the State should have laid against him was forgery — a charge he was not admitting to. For the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to lay such a charge at this stage, Khan contended, would be an abuse of the process and unfair to Ali and to continue with the existing charge will also be prejudicial to Ali.

Khan submitted that Ali  was indicted on a suggestion  that he  had prepared a document and given it to others, and not on evidence. He further argued that the prosecution cannot use a substitute charge to draw the inference that Ali was involved in a conspiracy. Selvon said there was insufficient evidence against Hannibal and claimed that all the prosecution has is an allegation of a conspiracy. “All we are able to do is draw an inference from another inference.” Ravi Rajcoomar, who appears with Osbourne Charles SC for Mitchell, said there was evidence on which Mitchell should have been placed on trial and to do so was oppressive and unfair. Theodore Guerra SC, lead attorneys for Wright, in rejecting the amended count, said all the prosecution has done was identify the other persons with whom the accused purportedly conspired. Ali’s lawyers included Khan, Larry Lalla and Nadia Astraph instructed by Llewellyn Thompson. Guerra, Pamela Elder SC and Gilbert Petersen SC are appearing for Wright.