Businessmen Steve Ferguson and Ishwar Galbaransingh are resisting attempts to extradite them to the United States to face charges of fraud and money laundering in relation to the Piarco Airport Development Project.
By Imran AliIn a joint application for judicial review filed at the Port of Spain High Court yesterday, they contended that Attorney General John Jeremie acted out of bias and improper motives in authorising the extradition process against them locally last July.
They are also contending that the warrant issued by the Chief Magistrate for their extradition was illegal in that there were several procedural flaws in the process and they were denied an opportunity of being heard before the warrants were issued.
Ferguson and Galbaransingh are currently before the local courts on other charges jointly with other business people and former government ministers for other offences relating to a corruption investigation into the airport project.
As an alternative to their argument of bias, they also contended that the Attorney General should not have issued the authority to proceed until after their local charges had been determined.
Yesterday's application named attorneys Devesh Maharaj, Gillian Lucky, Hemlaxmi Singh, Rajiv Persad and Faraaz Mohammed as representing Ferguson and Galbaransingh.
The application contended that in issuing the authority for the extradition charges to proceed, Jeremie acted out of political bias in furtherance of an agenda to discredit Ferguson, Galbaransingh and the Opposition United National Congress.
