00:00An appeal by British King's Counsel Vincent Nelson against his conviction and sentence for conspiracy to commit corruption and money laundering has been dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
00:12The ruling by Justices Nolan Burrow, James Abood and Geoffrey Henderson affirmed an earlier decision by a single judge, Justice Mark Mohammed, who refused to extend the time for Nelson to file the appeal.
00:25The King's Counsel was convicted on June 4, 2019, after pleading guilty to conspiring with former Attorney General Anand Ramlogan, Senior Counsel and Attorney Gerald Ramdeen, to corruptly give rewards to Ramlogan and to conspire to launder those funds.
00:44He was sentenced on March 2, 2020, by then-High Court Justice Malcolm Holder to pay a fine of TT$2.25 million or, in default, face three years of hard labor.
00:57Nelson's application for leave to appeal was filed significantly out of time on October 31, 2023.
01:05The central tenet of Nelson's proposed appeal was that the circumstances leading to his plea agreement constituted an abuse of process and executive power and a breach of a promise not to prosecute.
01:19He alleged, then-Attorney General Farah Salrawi Senior Counsel obtained a notarized statement from him through, quote-unquote, improper inducements.
01:29These allegedly included promises of non-prosecution, non-disclosure of his statement, payment of outstanding fees and an indemnity for any breach of the indemnity agreement.
01:42Nelson also claimed he was threatened with the withholding of his outstanding fees if he did not provide the statement.
01:50Following a change in government in 2015, Nelson struggled to receive payment for his work.
01:56In September 2017, he confided in his attorney, Roger K. Walsing, about alleged kickbacks demanded by former AG Ramlogan and Ramdeen for his legal work.
02:07This information was subsequently relayed to then-Attorney General Al-Rawi.
02:12Nelson claimed Al-Rawi offered to facilitate payment of his outstanding fees in exchange for a notarized statement detailing the kickbacks.
02:22Facing a cancer diagnosis and in need of funds for medical treatment, Nelson agreed but insisted on a contractual indemnity from the government of Trinidad and Tobago.
02:33An indemnity agreement was formalized in November 2017 between Al-Rawi and Nelson, which, among other terms, stated that Al-Rawi would recommend to the DPP that no criminal proceedings be commenced against him and that Nelson's evidence would not be disclosed.
02:51Following this, Nelson received outstanding payments, approximately $10 million.
02:57However, in alleged breach of this agreement, the notarized statement was disclosed to the National Crime Agency of the United Kingdom by the government of TNT, leading to a criminal investigation against Nelson.
03:11It was later taken over by Trinidad and Tobago.
03:14Nelson also asserted that Al-Rawi promised him a presidential pardon within one month of his sentence and if he were prosecuted in Trinidad and Tobago.
03:25Despite these alleged inducements, Nelson entered into a plea agreement with the state in May of 2019, agreeing to plead guilty to the corruption and money laundering charges in exchange for a non-custodial sentence.
03:39He pleaded not guilty to the charge of conspiracy to commit misbehavior in public office, which the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions later discontinued.
03:50Justice Mohammed, in his July 2024 decision, refused the extension of time, for he found the reasons for the nearly four-and-a-half-year delay in filing the appeal to be neither convincing nor weighty.
04:03Before the full Court of Appeal panel, Nelson's legal team cited Nelson's illness and the discontinuance of proceedings against Ramdeen and Ramlogan in October of 2022 as justifications for the delay.
04:18Justice Henderson did not accept the justifications and the panel agreed with Justice Mohammed dismissing Nelson's application and reinforcing the principle that the DPP's office operates independently of executive influence in prosecution matters.
04:36The King's Council can further appeal the ruling at the Privy Council.
04:39Arvishita Mori, Rupanarayan, TV6 News.
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