Canadian Immigration Consultant Balwant Persaud was acquitted of two of three charges of obtaining money by false pretence, when he appeared before Magistrate Dale Kingston on August 23.
Persaud had been accused of obtaining money from Nadira Mohan on the premise that he could obtain a Canadian student visa for her, knowing same to be false. He had also been accused of falsely pretending that he was in a position to obtain Canadian visas for a number of other persons, knowing same to be false.
The two cases were dismissed after Persaud’s attorney Glenn Hanoman submitted that no case had been made against his client.
In a recent telephone interview Hanoman told Stabroek News that Persaud is a genuine Canadian immigration consultant and as such he should never have been charged with “falsely pretending that he was in a position to acquire visas for the virtual complainants since he is indeed an immigration consultant.” He said too he was able to successfully advance the argument of no-case submission as the evidence presented by the prosecution pointed to another person and not his client.
He said the virtual complainants in the matter had indeed approached his client in a bid for him to secure Canadian visas for them. Hanoman said subsequently his client had suffered a theft at his home in Canada and had planned to travel to that country and, believing that Samad was a legitimate immigration consultant, he referred the virtual complainants to him.
Hanoman said that his case against the prosecution was made even stronger as both the defendants and Samad in open court admitted under oath to transacting the business together and not with Persaud. He also said that the virtual complainants had told the police that they had given their money to Samad.
“They swore under oath in open court that it was Samad to whom they had given monies for visas and not my client. Apart from that Samad himself in open court also accepted that it was he who had collected monies from the virtual complainants,” Hanoman said, adding that this is a clear example of how the virtual complainants had contradicted their own case.
