Former Attorney General Reginald Armour has been called upon to apologise for his “malicious accusations” about a missing court file at the centre of the $20 million Vindra Naipaul-Coolman malicious prosecution scandal.
Former Attorney General Anand Ramlogan issued a release yesterday taking note of the Appeal Court’s judgment which reinstated the close to $20 million judgment that was awarded to the men who were found not guilty of the murder of Vindra Naipaul-Coolman.
The appeal involved the decision of Justice Joan Charles to set aside the multimillion dollar award that Master Martha Alexander directed the men to receive.
Shervon Peters and Devon Peters, their brother Anthony Gloster, Joel Fraser, Ronald Armstrong, Keida and Jameel Garcia, Marlon Trimmingham, and Antonio Charles were to each receive $2.1 million for malicious prosecution and for the ten years they spent in prison before being freed in 2016.
“Having regard to the findings in this judgment, we call upon former AG Reginald Armour to personally and publicly apologise for his disingenuous public posturing in this matter and for the scurrilous and malicious accusations made about a missing court file when the evidence clearly proved this to be a lie. The scandal created by the PNM has backfired—spectacularly and comprehensively!” stated Ramlogan.
He said the rule of law has prevailed because independent judicial analysis of the law and facts was not swayed by the public political posturing.
Ramlogan noted that the judgment also dealt with the saga of the “missing file” that was “irresponsibly peddled” by Armour.
“It is a complete vindication for our clients and their legal team considering the insinuation and innuendo by Mr Armour who sought to deflect attention from the State’s incompetent handling of this case by claiming that the file had suddenly ‘disappeared’. His remarks suggested that our clients or their legal team might have had something to do with the sudden disappearance of this file,” stated Ramlogan.
He further pointed out that the Appeal Court found that it was the then AG that did not act promptly after it was discovered that judgment in default of defence was entered against him.
Ramlogan said the court was critical of the “tragic mishandling” of this case and found that the State had sufficient notice of the hearings—but simply failed to appear.
He noted that the court also upheld his submission that the AG participated fully in the trial of the assessment of damages and that the drama was simply a direct response to understandable public outrage.
