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Duprey: I’ve not seen T&T in 3 years

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Apologise Anand
Published: 
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Lawrence Duprey

Former CL Financial chairman Lawrence Duprey maintains he hasn’t been to T&T since June 2009. Duprey is also demanding an apology from Attorney General Anand Ramlogan for what he says is the misinformation Ramlogan is disseminating about his whereabouts. “I left T&T in June 2009 and I have never returned…June 2009, that's when I left,” he said. 

 

 

Duprey, 79, was speaking exclusively with the T&T Guardian in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA. He reiterated the call he made through his attorney recently for an apology from Ramlogan over the suggestion he had been back in T&T during the period of the commission of enquiry into the collapse of Clico and its subsidiaries.

 

Duprey said he is now involved in consultancy, which sees him working in different countries worldwide. His consultancy involves restructuring societies. He said: “There’s a lot of work outside here, I don’t have to come back home, or what used to be home, and I don’t live in Trinidad…Don’t let anyone fool you. I have never lived in Trinidad.” He explained that life as an international consultant does not confine him to one location and he has always lived overseas.

 

Duprey was responding to questions posed by the T&T Guardian after statements by Ramlogan that Duprey was a “wanted man,” but had entered the country and slipped back out without being detected. Ramlogan’s statements came during a post-Cabinet press briefing on May 2. He told the media that Duprey had entered T&T and left without a summons being served on him to appear before the recently-concluded commission of enquiry into the collapse of Clico.

 

Duprey, through his attorneys Andrew Mitchell, QC, and Lionel Luckhoo, has also denied being on board a yacht in Tobago, or Trinidad, or in T&T waters. His lawyers say the rumours being perpetuated by Ramlogan detract from “the constitutional rights, justice, fairness and equality to all to which my client, in common with all persons, is entitled.” In an immediate response to Ramlogan’s claims, through Luckhoo, Duprey had denied being in T&T.

 

The AG’s attorney, Donna Prowell, then asked whether that meant Duprey had been in Tobago. Prowell, in her letter to Luckhoo, dated May 3, said there had been rumours that Duprey had been visiting Tobago with friends aboard a yacht. In that case, she said, a summons could have been served on him there.

 

 

In his second letter to the AG, Luckhoo explained: “When I stated that Mr Duprey has been ordinarily resident out of the jurisdiction for a number of years and has not been to Trinidad since the middle of 2009, it should be taken to mean not been to T&T or within the maritime jurisdiction of same since 2009.”

 

During the interview with the T&T Guardian, Duprey said he has been working in the Middle East and other countries since 2009. Documentation the T&T Guardian obtained corroborated his claim that he had not been in T&T since 2009. Ramlogan, through Prowell, also said a witness summons was served on Duprey’s brother Peter Duprey by PC Jason Marine on February 28, 2012. But Duprey’s lawyer says his client doesn’t have a brother named Peter.

 

Luckhoo, in a second letter to Ramlogan on May 7, and obtained by the T&T Guardian, said Ramlogan’s utterances and his labelling of Duprey as a “wanted man” remained “opaque and misconceived.” 

 

 

Demanding an apology, Luckhoo wrote: “I am fortified in the expectation that your client shall ensure that investigations (concerning among other things ‘Mr Peter Duprey’) are concluded with the appropriate urgency—and that he intends to disclose the results of same to the public. When it becomes apparent that my client has not entered the twin-island republic clandestinely, I trust that yours will issue the appropriate apology to the police, the immigration authorities, and of course to my client.”

 

At the press briefing, Ramlogan chastised the police, saying that the Government would want answers “as to whether or not the Police Service acted quickly when they knew the commission had issued a summons (for Duprey).” The AG said immigration authorities ought to have been alerted so that Duprey’s name was red-flagged in the system.

 

Duprey, through Luckhoo, wrote to the AG on May 3, calling Ramlogan’s statements “illogical and outrageous,” and saying although there was an ongoing criminal investigation into the affairs of Clico, Duprey had not been charged and there were no criminal proceedings against him. Duprey also responded to the Clico Policyholders Group, which has suggested he return the Chaconia gold medal bestowed on him in 1999. 

 

 

He was awarded the nation’s second highest honour by then President ANR Robinson for service in the field of business. “If they want it, take it...I don’t need it,” Duprey said. The policyholders, in a media release and letters to the editors of newspapers, called on Duprey to give up the medal because of his involvement in the collapse of the CL Financial group and his failure to attend the commission of enquiry into the collapse of Clico.


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