PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Attorney General Reginald Armour Wednesday said an investigation had been launched to determine how the State was unable to file a defense in a matter in which it has been ordered to compensate nine men TT$2.1 million (One TT dollar=US$0.16 cents) each after they were acquitted of the murder of businesswoman Vindra Naipaul-Coolman in 2016.
At a news conference, Armor said that an important file that would have alerted the Office of the Attorney General to the matter “had disappeared” even though the relevant department had received it.
“That file was never brought to the attention of the Attorney General’s Secretariat. It was received at the Solicitor General Department …on one day, and the following day it went missing. The first that the Attorney General’s Secretariat learned of the existence of this claim was when the judgment was delivered on Monday of this week, January 31,” Armour told reporters.
“Let me emphasize, citizens of Trinidad and Tobago, that by what I have just said, I am not seeking to pass the buck. I accept that the buck stops here (and) as Attorney General, I am responsible under the constitution for the management and conduct of civil litigation by and against the State of Trinidad and Tobago.
“What has occurred, just to repeat, is grievous, and it must never be allowed to happen again, and I give to the public of Trinidad and Tobago full assurance that as soon as I have had the results of the investigation, which I have ordered, I will be accounting further to the citizenry fully and transparently,” Armour added.
Naipaul-Coolman, 52, the former chief executive of the supermarket chain Naipaul’s Xtra Foods, was kidnapped from the driveway of her residence in Lange Park, Chaguanas, in west-central Trinidad, on the night of December 19, 2006. Her body was never found. Her kidnappers had demanded a three million dollar ransom for her release.
On Monday, High Court Master, Martha Alexander, awarded TT$19,168,917.56 for malicious prosecution and exemplary damages; costs amounting to $200,917.56; and the cost of an expert witness of $68,000, making it perhaps the most significant award in Trinidad and Tobago’s judicial history.
Interest will be added to the damages for each man, at a rate of 2.5 percent, from May 29, 2020, to January 30, this year.
“Persons plucked out of society and thrown into a maelstrom where they are incarcerated for nine years on questionable evidence should not be expected to adjust, survive or thrive in abysmal prison conditions such as to justify ‘tapering off’ compensatory awards,” Master Alexander said in her ruling.
The nine men – Shervon Peters, Devon Peters, Anthony Gloster, Joel Fraser, Ronald Armstrong, Keida Garcia, Jameel Garcia, Marlon Trimmingham, and Antonio Charles – were among ten persons who had gone on trial in 2016 for Naipaul-Coolman’s murder.
Eight were acquitted, and one was released after the trial judge upheld a no-case submission. But two men – Earl “Bobo” Trimmingham and Lyndon “Iron” James – were ordered to be re-tried while Allan “Scanny” Martin, who was also on trial, was killed in 2016 during a failed escape attempt from the Frederick Street prison in Port of Spain. In October 2021, Gloster was killed in a drive-by shooting in Diego Martin, west of here.
The nine men had filed a malicious prosecution claim in May 2020, which the State did not defend, despite having entered an appearance. A team of lawyers, including former attorney general Anand Ramlogan, SC, represented them.
Armour told reporters that the State would have had a strong defense against the claims of the nine former accused men because the case had gone through the preliminary inquiry and the men committed to trial.
“There was, on that basis, a commitment to trial a prima facie case meaning there were reasonable grounds to support the charges,” he said, noting that at the High Court, the matter survived a no-case submission “on the basis there was a case to answer by the accused and went to the jury which is an indication that the police had a sufficient legal basis for proffering the charges.”
He also noted that the two accused had unsuccessfully appealed their matter before the Court of Appeal.
Armour said he has asked for an investigation “because the public is owed an explanation for what has occurred here.”
He said since the judgment had been handed down on Monday, initial investigations have “advised that the claim form and statement of case filed by these gentlemen was filed on May 29, 2020, and it was served on the Solicitor General’s Office on June 22, 2020 (and) an officer of that department has signed for acceptance of service on June 22, 2020”.
Armour said on June 23, 2020, “the record shows further that a file was open for the matter and that the file was sent to the Solicitor General for assignment. after that, the file disappeared”.
Armour said he could see the file on Monday after the acting attorney general, Stuart Young, had asked the Registry of the High Court on Tuesday for copies of the documents in the case.
“Until yesterday, when we got those papers, the Secretariat of the Attorney General had never seen those documents. The file disappeared on June 23, 2020, having been signed for and received on June 22, 2020.
“It seems incredulous, and it demands an explanation,” Armour said, adding that “all appropriate agencies will be brought to bear in this investigation.
“What we have been able to piece together is after that, on August 5, a notice of application for default judgment in that matter was further served on the Office of the Solicitor General. It was received on November 12, 2020”.
Armour said when a statement of the case is served in which the gentlemen claim that they were maliciously prosecuted, the defendant has a specific time under the court rules to put in a defense.
“In other words, there was a slam dunk defense available to the state of Trinidad and Tobago on that case, but for the fact the file disappeared,” Armour said, telling reporters he wanted to make it “very clear …that I do not want anything I say to appear to be an indictment of anyone.
“I am addressing the understandable outrage and concern that members of the public must experience, and the fact of the matter is, I acknowledge that there are very competent, professional persons who staff the office of the Solicitor General and the Chief State Solicitor’s Departments, which are departments of the Attorney General’s Office where those documents were served.
“I do not doubt anybody’s professionalism. This matter deserves a full investigation, and until the facts of that investigation are discovered and fleshed out, I would not want anyone to suggest that anything I am saying today I am attributing responsibility to any one particular person or more than one”.
Armour said nonetheless, “the fact remains that an explanation is demanded a TT$20 million outrage that has been visited on the citizens of this country.
“I will not permit myself at this stage as a result of due process to utter what I think has occurred in this case, but it is sinister,” Armour said, adding that he would be seeking external counsel to advise on what the State should be doing regarding the High Court judgment.
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