Ordered to court

CHIEF MAGISTRATE Sherman McNicolls yesterday ordered the State to bring to court on Monday, all the documents seized from Maritime General Insurance Company Limited and Fidelity Finance and Leasing Company Limited during the execution of a search warrant early in 2002. The order stemmed from a plea by defence attorney Vernon de Lima during cross-examination of State witness ASP Wayne Boyd of the Anti-Corruption Investigations Bureau. Boyd had refused a request by de Lima to bring the documents to court because he said they were part of an “ongoing investigation.”  

“On behalf of the two defendant companies, help me,” the attorney literally begged the magistrate. “I need those documents to help my clients and I can’t continue with cross-examination until I see those documents.” De Lima is representing the companies, which, along with former government Ministers Brian Kuei Tung and Russell Huggins; CEO of Northern Construction Ltd (NCL), Ishwar Galbaransingh; financial comptroller of NCL, Amrith Maharaj, CEO of Maritime General Insurance Company, John Henry Smith, chairman of the Maritime Group of Companies, Steve Ferguson and company secretary, Barbara Gomes, are charged with a total of 21 offences related to the new terminal development at Piarco International Airport.  

When asked by prosecutor Gilbert Petersen SC which of the documents he wanted to see, the attorney practically yelled: “All they took away from my clients.”  De Lima then requested that the witness leave the courtroom before voicing his suspicions that “something more is in the mortar than in the pestle.” He said the defence should be allowed to view all of the 161 seized items and not only the 23 that had been tendered into evidence.  The rest, he said, the investigators had retained in the vault at the Anti-Corruption office for over two years.  He said the proper thing would have been for them to return the “unused material” to the companies.  “Please, as a minister of justice, intervene,” he begged McNicolls. Petersen assured the court he had no objections to de Lima being allowed a “supervised” visit to the vault to view the originals of the documents, some of which he said had been copied and disclosed. The documents that had not been disclosed, Petersen said, were not exhibits in this matter and were part of an ongoing investigation relative to another matter in another court.

But the defence attorney insisted he wanted to view the documents in the presence of the court.  He said he did not want anyone to claim, at a later date, that proper procedure had not been followed. Counting the accused seated in the prisoners’ dock, de Lima said, “These eight people are saying they have not done anything wrong,” and added that the contents of the rest of the documents may very well prove that. McNicolls eventually ordered the prosecution to bring all the documents to court when the matter resumes on Monday. Boyd was also cross-examined by attorneys Desmond Allum SC and Gillian Lucky. At the start of yesterday’s hearing, Senior Counsel Frank Solomon had also sought the magistrate’s assistance to “enquire and require formally of the State” the whereabouts of other documents relative to the case, some of which had reportedly been destroyed.  “This is not a list into personas, this is an inquiry,” Solomon said. McNicolls, however, decided to wait to see how the evidence unfolded before he addressed that issue.