A Bahamian court yesterday shot down a lawsuit in which two Trinidadians demanded the return of crucial financial documents which are needed to prosecute the Piarco Airport corruption cases.
By Daren BahawJustice Vera Watkins, sitting in the Bahamian Supreme Court, common law and equity division, found that the Attorney General of Bahamas, Allyson Maynard-Gibson, acted properly in complying with a request from the Trinidad and Tobago Government to provide assistance with respect to criminal investigations back in 2003.
Former Maritime Financial Group executive Steve Ferguson and chairman of Northern Construction Limited, Ishwar Galbaransingh, had challenged the decision of the Bahamian Attorney General to provide the documents to Trinidad and Tobago, claiming that the charges brought against them were politically motivated.
The two former financiers of the United National Congress are now before the courts charged with a series of criminal offences related to the Piarco Airport Development Project, but will receive a list of all the documents which were provided to the prosecuting authorities, according to the court's ruling.
"The Attorney General (of Bahamas) was seised of sufficient information which would cause him to be satisfied that there were reasonable grounds for suspecting that an offence or offences had been committed under the Proceeds of Crime Act or the Prevention of Corruption Act of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, and that a criminal investigation was being carried out in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago at that time," the judge stated in the 43-page ruling.
The judge agreed that the application for information relating to off-shore bank accounts, company records and bank transactions was "not merely a fishing expedition" and noted "the evidence was more than enough to establish that charges had been laid and that an investigation was on-going".
Attorney General John Jeremie, in a media release, stated that the Bahamian court ruling "marked a definitive step for legal co-operation" between both countries.
