Basdeo Panday - Legal Problems

Legal Problems

On May 31, 2005, Panday, together with his wife, Oma and former UNC MP Carlos John and businessman Ishwar Galbaransingh (chairman of Northern Construction Limited) were arrested on corruption charges. The State alleged that the Pandays had received TT$250,000 on December 30, 1998 from John and Galbaransingh in exchange for giving Northern Construction a construction contract for the Piarco Airport Development Project (PADP). Panday refused bail and chose to remain in prison for a short while.

Panday, Mrs. Panday and John were placed on TT$750,000 bail, while Galbaransingh was placed on a $1,000,000. This was called a punitive bail both by supporters of the UNC and by former Attorney General Ramesh Maharaj, a sometime political opponent of Panday. On June 7, 2005, bail was reduced to TT$650,000. A day later, Panday accepted bail after being jailed for over a week.

Ironically, the evidence for the charges laid against him was the product of two administrations, one of which was Panday's, and, in this administration, the evidence of the charges was due to investigations done by a U.S. private investigator hired by the Ministry of legal affairs when Basdeo Panday was Prime Minister.The law's amendment, under which Basdeo Panday was charged, also was a product of the Basdeo Panday administration.

On March 20, 2007, the Court of Appeal quashed the conviction against Panday for failing to declare a London bank account, based on the possibility that he may not have received a fair trial.

The three Court of Appeal judges agreed that there was in fact a real possibility of bias by Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls in his April 24, 2006 ruling, which found Panday guilty on three counts of failing to declare a London bank account to the Integrity Commission for the years 1997, 1998 and 1999, respectively, contrary to Section 27 (1)(b) of the Integrity in Public Life Act 1987. Information that surfaced later on, linked Chief Magistrate McNicolls to a multi-million dollar land deal and a company associated with one of the main witnesses in the Basdeo Panday trial. This information, along with the fact that Chief Magistrate McNicolls refused to give evidence for the criminal prosecution of the Chief Justice, which caused that prosecution to fail, were the main arguments used by Panday's lawyers in his Appeal Court hearing.