Piarco II case resumes

Accused people in the Piarco II preliminary inquiry will begin leading their evidence when the magisterial proceedings resumes on Friday.

No evidence was taken when the inquiry resumed on Friday last before Senior Magistrate Ejenny Espinet in the Port of Spain Magistrates Court.

At the sitting, Espinet set out the time-table for evidential hearings.

“We are back at the stage where evidence is to be led,” she said, as she ruled that hearings will be held every Wednesday and Friday for the taking of evidence.

The inquiry will resume on Friday, however, to give the accused time to organise their witnesses and for administrative arrangements to be made.

The inquiry resumed two weeks ago after Justice Jacqueline Wilson dismissed an application of the defendants for a stay of the magisterial proceedings.

The stay was asked for in a judicial review application which sought to have Espinet removed from hearing the almost completed decade-old case on the basis of bias.

Wilson has granted them leave to challenge the magistrate’s ruling that they had a case to answer.

Before the magistrates court are Steve Ferguson and Ishwar Galbaransingh, along with former UNC ministers Brian Kuei Tung and Sadiq Baksh, former Airports Authority chairmen Tyrone Gopee and Ameer Edoo and Galbaransingh’s former employee Amrith Maharaj. Galbaransingh and Ferguson’s companies Northern Construction Ltd and Maritime General Insurance are also parties in the inquiry.

They were implicated between 2004 and 2005 for alleged corruption and bid-rigging arising out of the Piarco Airport Development Project between 1995 and 2001.