PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC –The Office of the Attorney General Friday announced that retired Appeal Court judge, Stanley John, has accepted the appointment of “lead investigator’ as the State seeks to determine how it 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.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Reginald Armour told a news conference that a necessary 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.
But the lawyers, including former attorney general Anand Ramlogan, representing nine men, dismissed as a “joke” Armour’s statement regarding the missing file, adding, “we can say, without fear of contradiction by anyone, that the facts will easily demonstrate that the Ministry of the Attorney General, was kept fully abreast of this case at every step of the litigation.”
In its statement on Friday, the Office of the Attorney General said John would also “interrogate the systemic process in existence and make recommendations for improvement concerning the Departments of the Solicitor General and Chief State Solicitor and the management of civil proceedings in the name of the Attorney General.”
Earlier, the Office of the Attorney General had announced that former Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) judge Rolston Nelson, SC, had been appointed to advise the State on its next move regarding the multi-million dollar judgment.
It said Nelson had been retained to advise “on issues relevant to the missing file and the provenance of the decision” of Master Martha Alexander, who on Monday 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.
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, 2016. Her body was never found. Her kidnappers had demanded a three million dollar ransom for her release.
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.
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