Trinidad and Tobago’s Attorney General Reginald Armour says an investigation has been launched to determine how the state was unable to file a defense in a case 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.
Armour, speaking at a news conference, said an important file which would have alerted the Office of the Attorney General to the matter had disappeared even though it had been received by the relevant department.
“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 and the first that the Attorney General’s Secretariat learnt of the existence of this claim was when the judgement was delivered on Monday of this week the 31st of January,” 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 in full and transparent manner,” Armour added.
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.
On Monday, High Court Master, Martha Alexander, 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 largest 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.
The nine men had filed a malicious prosecution claim in May 2020 which the State did not defend, despite having entered an appearance. They were represented by a team of lawyers including former attorney general, Anand Ramlogan, SC.
Armour told reporters that the state would have had a strong defence against the claims of the nine former accused men on the basis that the case had gone through the preliminary inquiry and the men committed to trial.
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