THE charges levied against the three New Building Society (NBS) Directors for wrongful confinement were dismissed by Magistrate Delon Bess in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.

Anil Kishun, Anil Beharry and Deka Tularam, Directors of the New Building Society, were charged with counts of wrongful confinement proceedings beyond certain circumlocutory limits (that is to say out of the building) but the charges were dismissed for want of prosecution.

The charges emanated from an incident which occurred on January 23, 2018 when several persons including attorneys-at-law had entered the bank in an attempt to remove the society’s property. The directors were accused of confining eight persons from leaving the bank.

“The charges against the directors were dismissed for want of prosecution when both the special prosecutor and assistant counsel failed to attend court or provide the court with any explanation for their absence,” Attorney-at-Law, Nigel Hughes, explained on Thursday.
He added, “the dismissal came after the court waited in excess of 90 minutes for counsel to appear and after causing several inquiries to be made about whether the prosecutor had informed the clerk of court or any other court official about their absence. The inquiries revealed that no such notification had been sent.”

Counsel for the defendants observed that this was not the first occasion on which the special prosecutor had been absent.

Earlier on in the case, the board of directors had said that the marshals and others entered the bank like ‘thieves in the night’ and in an unprofessional manner that resulted in panic, chaos and misunderstanding.

On Jan 4, 2018, NBS, as well as the other appellants, including Trust Company (Guyana) Limited, received a court order directing that the sum of $59,033,281 be paid over to Maurice Arjoon but such was not done at the time of the indent. The sum represented the former NBS CEO’s pension benefits.