The Attorney General’s Secretariat was only made aware that a claim of malicious prosecution was filed against the State by the nine men tried for the kidnapping and murder of businesswoman Vindra Naipaul Coolman, when the judgment in the matter was handed down on Monday of this week.

That revelation comes from Attorney General Reginald Armour, who addressed the controversial issue at a media conference on Wednesday.

AG Armour says the file was served to the Solicitor General’s department in June of 2020, however it subsequently disappeared a short while after.

The High Court on Monday ordered the State pay each of the men $2million after it failed to mount a defence in the case.

“My very limited investigation to date, has advised that the claim form and statement of case filed by these gentlemen were filed on May 29, 2020. And it was served on the Solicitor General’s office on June 22, 2020. On June 23, 2020, the record shows further a file was opened for the matter and that the file was sent to the Solicitor General for assignment. Thereafter, the file disappeared,” Armour explained.

He added: “Yesterday (Tuesday), we have retrieved from the registry of the High Court because Mr Young got on the High Court and said these are all documents filed with the High Court, can we see them? Until yesterday when we got those papers, the Secretariat of the Attorney General had never seen those documents. The file disappeared on June 23, 2020.”

 “It seems incredulous. And it demands an explanation,” he added.

An investigation has been launched with the issue, with the AG saying he would stop short of saying the file “was caused to diasppear” pending the outcome of the probe.

“What we’ve been able to piece together is thereafter, on August 5, a notice of application for default judgment in that matter, was further served on the office of the Solicitor General. It was received on November 12, 2020.”

Mr. Armour says what has occurred is grievous and must never be allowed to happen again.