By Sue-Ann Wayow
THE file of the Solicitor General Office detailing the civil claim of nine former murder accused has mysteriously disappeared.
And the public is owed an explanation, declares Attorney General Reginald Armour.
Armour who returned from Nassau, Bahamas, on Tuesday held a press conference on Wednesday to speak on matters related to a High Court judgement in which the nine men who were convicted of the murder of businesswoman Vindra Naipaul-
The decision has angered many who questioned why the State failed to defend the case which Armour said was a “slam dunk defence”
He agreed with government minister Stuart Young who acted in his absence that an investigation be immediately launched and he was awaiting the full outcome of the investigation that will involve all appropriate agencies. It also must be accomplished within the shortest possible time.
There may also still be time to have the judgement appealed as what occurred was grievous and must never be allowed to occur again, Armour said.
“As Attorney General and on behalf of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, I acknowledge that this is a grievous development and a development which in my view needs to be addressed to, needs to be addressed frontally and for which there must be full accountability and transparency,” he said.
Recalling the background of the entire case, including two accused who went to the Court of Appeal against the Attorney General in 2012, Armour said those two already had a pronouncement that was reasonable cause for them to be charged as they were.
As were all of the other co-accused, he added.
Armour said since learning of the judgement on Monday, his office has been able to unearth some facts.
He said, “My very limited investigation to date has advised that the claim form and statement of case filed by these gentlemen was filed on the 29th May 2020 and it was served on the Solicitor’s General office on the 22nd of June 2020. An officer of that department has signed for acceptance of service on the 22nd of June 2020.”
Armour continued, “On 23rd of June 2020, the record shows further that a file was opened for the matter and that the file was sent to the Solicitor General for assignment. Thereafter the file disappeared.”
“This is the file,” he said, lifting it up.
A copy of the file was retrieved from the registry of the High Court upon urgent request by Young and sent via soft copy which was received on Tuesday Armour said.
The file sent to the Office of the Solicitor General has still not been discovered.
Up until then, the Secretariat of the Attorney General never saw those documents, and the first time the Secretariat learned of the claim was when the judgement was passed on Monday.
Both the Office of the Solicitor General and the Secretariat fall under the purview of the Office of the Attorney General.
“It seems incredulous and it demands an explanation,” he declared.
Armour said, “On the 5th of August, a notice of application for default judgement in that matter was further served on the office of the Solicitor General. It was received on the 12th of November 2020.”
Giving all the outcomes of previous cases including the ones that was before the Court of Appeal, he said, “In other words, there was a slam dunk defence available to the state of Trinidad and Tobago on that case…but for the fact that the file disappeared.”
Making it clear that investigations were at an early stage, Armour said he did not want anything he said to be an indictment on anyone.
“I am not impuning 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 by anything I am saying today, I am attributing responsibility to any one particular person or more than one,” he said.
The Attorney General also said he was not in any way impuning on any of the judges in the matter including Master Martha Alexander who gave her judgement based on what was before her.
He would not give his personal thoughts as he what happened in the case “but it is sinister.”
Armour said he would be seeking the advice from external counsel to advise on the next steps as well as the forensic skills that will be sought.
He will not be advising himself on the matter.
After having read the file, Armour said, “There may yet be a basis on which the actual default judgement which started the ball rolling to have this state adjudged guilty on a case which was a slam dunk successful defence, that that actual judgement even at this late stage may yet be capable of being appealed.”
Armour assured, “As soon as I have the results of the investigation which I have ordered, I will be accounting further to the citizenry in full and transparent manner.”
Currently, there were too many questions to be answered and he did not yet have the answers to, when questioned by the media saying the media questions were similar to that of what the investigators would be asking.
