By Gabriella Chapman

High Court throws out application to block 19 fraud charges

JUSTICE Franklin Holder, on Monday, dismissed the application of fraud-accused PPP Presidential candidate, Irfaan Ali, which was filed to quash the 19 fraud charges levelled against him.

According to his application, Ali contended that the charges were vague and constituted an abuse of process; as such, he was seeking from the High Court, several orders against Police Corporal Munilall Persaud, an investigator attached to the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), Commissioner of Police, Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan and Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Shalimar Ali-Hack

He was seeking an order of Certiorari quashing the decision of the DPP to charge him with the offence of conspiracy to defraud contrary to common law, on the basis that it was irrational, biased, and influenced by improper considerations and motives; an order of Certiorari quashing the information of oath, of Munilall Persaud, on the 19 charges.
Ali was also asking for an order of Prohibition restraining the Chief Magistrate, or any other magistrate from hearing or attempting to hear the charges as filed by the Corporal; and a declaration that the particulars of the charges do not constitute an offence known to law and one that there is no statutory or common law duty to obtain a valuation prior to the sale of the property.

However, Justice Holder was not convinced on the grounds that were presented by his battery of attorneys, Devindra Kissoon, Anil Nandlall and Neil Boston SC. In fact, Justice Holder ruled that the fourth named Respondent, DPP be removed as a party and stated that Ali may raise his complaint to the Magistrate through the criminal process and that his constitutional rights under Article 144 (4) were not breached as he had also alleged in his application.

According to reports, the charges that were brought before the court last November, stemmed from the sale of lands at the Pradoville two scheme, Sparendaam, East Coast Demerara, where he (Ali) is accused of defrauding the state of over $174M after selling the lands at extremely undervalued prices. The investigation into these charges had reportedly been happening for two years.

The issue came to the fore when the coalition government commenced several investigations into suspicious financial transactions of state officials, which bordered or amounted to corrupt practices and/or abuse of office. It was found that several persons close to the last government had received prime seafront lands belonging to the state at extraordinarily low cost.

It was reported that the “Pradoville” recipients, the majority of whom held very high positions within private or state organisations, received and later built posh or luxury homes on the properties after paying as little as $114 per square foot; citizens, on the other hand, were being made to pay as much as $500 a square foot for ordinary land.
The “Pradoville” arrangement was made during PPP’s term of office, 2010-2015. Jagdeo’s property is easily the largest plot of land with the biggest mansion, equipped with a pool and other amenities. The matter became even more controversial when it was related that taxpayers’ money was used to develop the land and remove a transmitter belonging to the National Communications Network at a cost of around $100M to develop the scheme for the prominent persons going to live there.

There was even more controversy surrounding the seafront properties, since there was no advertising of the state lands and it appeared that all the recipients who got property were handpicked by the then government.

In September 2010, parcels of land each measuring 0.3030 of an acre were sold to Robert Persaud, Shaik Baksh, Clement Rohee, Lisa Ramotar, Dr. Compton Bourne and Priya Manickchand for GUY$1.5M. Jagdeo purchased two acres for 9.8M and Jennifer Westford bought 0.3186 of an acre for GUY$1. 5; Ghansham Singh paid GUY$1,502,000 for 0.3005 of an acre. Andrew Bishop, Roger Luncheon, Rajendra Singh, Safraz Khan, and Ramesh Dookhoo each purchased 0.3005 of an acre for GUY$1.5M.

George Hallaq and Nada Hallaq each paid GUY$5 million for 0.8422 of an acre, and Future Developers International (Guyana) Inc., whose sole director is Dr. Rajendra Singh purchased 0.5534 of an acre for GUY$3 million.

The Director of Public Prosecutions Shalimar Hack paid GUY$1.4M for 0.2767 of an acre, and former Chief of staff of the Guyana Defence Force Gary Best paid GUY$1.5M for 0.3005 acre. The argument of the Presidential candidate however, is that selling a plot of land without seeking valuation from a valuation officer is not against the law.

The criminal case at the Magistrates’ Court was placed on hold in January of this year, pending the outcome of the civil proceedings. Now that it was dismissed by the judge, the matter will return to the Magistrates’ Court to continue with the criminal trial, as interim stay is removed. In addition to his application being thrown out, costs were awarded to the second named respondent and the third named respondent in the sum of $100,000 each. The second and third named respondents were Commissioner of Police and the Chief Magistrate, respectively. The Commissioner of Police and the Chief Magistrate were represented by the Attorney General’s Chambers, while Persaud was represented by SOCU’s attorney, Leslyn Noble.