The start of the trial of former Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) accountant Peter Ramcharran has been postponed after the police requested time to reconstitute the case file following the removal of court documents from the offices of the Director of Public Prosecutions during the fire on Saturday that destroyed the nearby Office of Professional Responsibility at the Guyana Police Force Headquarters, Eve Leary, Kingston, Georgetown.
On Monday, when Ramcharran made his appearance at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts, he was informed that the prosecutor needed time to sort through the files that were removed on Saturday. Ramcharran is currently facing 17 charges which allege that as a member of the GRDB, he omitted or concurred in omitting entries related to a total of over $7 million from the organisation’s general ledger between January 11, 2010 and July 17, 2012.
While the matter was set for disclosure of evidence, the Police Prosecutor told Magistrate Dylon Bess that Prosecutor Neville Jeffers was asking for time to sort through the files that were removed from the DPP offices on Saturday.
Ramcharran’s attorney, Ronald Daniels, requested that it be ascertained that the prosecutor indeed had the information before any adjournment could be made. The court prosecutor, in turn, assured that Prosecutor Jeffers was ready to proceed with the matter and added that two witnesses who were present at court were proof that he had been prepared prior to the fire.
Magistrate Bess, in response, said that the court had to be guided by the circumstances mentioned, hence the matter was adjourned. He said that the statements needed to be disclosed by or on January 19 with the trial expected to commence on January 26.
In February 2020, Ramcharran was found guilty of fraudulently omitting $145 million from GRBD’s ledger. He was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment by Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan. He later filed an appeal against his conviction and sentence. He has since been released on $2 million High Court bail pending the hearing and determination of the appeal. In relation to the pending charges, Ramcharran was also released on High Court bail after a bail application by his lawyer was refused by the magistrate at his initial court appearance.
Ramcharran was charged by the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), an arm of the Guyana Police Force. He faced 39 fraud-related charges. A magistrate had issued a warrant for his arrest in 2017. At the time he was in Canada, from where he attempted to fight his extradition. However, he was unsuccessful and was extradited to Guyana in 2019, when he was handed over to police at the airport and taken before the court.
In the aftermath of Saturday’s inferno, the Director of Public Prosecutions Shalimar Ali-Hack indicated that a number of court cases would have to be rescheduled to facilitate the organisation of the files that were removed from the building.
