Carvil Duncan trial…Lawyer submits no-case submission, expresses interest in leading defence

Sep 10, 2016 Court Stories, Features / Columnists, News

A ruling which was expected to be made yesterday in the trial of Carvil Duncan- who is charged with the theft

CHARGED: Carvil Duncan

of over $29M from the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) -was deferred, after a request was made by Attorney Glenn Hanoman to have previous submissions made by another attorney be regarded as no-case submission instead of closing submissions.
Magistrate Leron Daly has since indicated that the court has been considering the written submissions laid over by attorney Charles Ramson Jr., at an August 17, court hearing, as submissions made at the close of the prosecution’s case and not a no-case submission.
Hanoman stated that should the court overrule his request, he would like to lead a defence on behalf of Duncan – an opportunity which was previously forfeited by Ramson.
Hanoman is appearing as a substitute attorney in the matter.
Carvil Duncan, 73, of 1977 Williamstad Road, Festival City, Georgetown, is accused of stealing $984, 900 belonging to GPL on Mach 31, 2015. It is also alleged that between May 7 and May 8, 2015 at Georgetown, Duncan conspired with a former senior official at GPL to steal the sum of $27,757,500, property of GPL.
Duncan has pleaded not guilty to the charges. He is currently on $1M bail.
At the last court hearing, Ramson had submitted that the prosecution had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of the offences and asked for the charges to be dismissed, deeming them misconceived. He had argued that the monies allegedly stolen from the GPL by Duncan, is not the property of the power company, but that of Republic Bank.
In relation to the first allegation, the lawyer had said that his client is charged with Simple Larceny, Contrary to Section 164 of the Criminal Law Offences Act Chapter 8:01.
Under this Section of the Constitution, Ramson asserted that his client cannot be charged with stealing monies by way of cheque, when it has been established by precedent under the law.
To support this contention, the lawyer said, “As soon as money is deposited in a customer’s account, the money becomes the property of the bank and not the customer. If money is loaned to a person and delivered to a person, the money belongs to the borrower as a debtor and not the lender as a creditor.”
He continued, “What transpired in this case is that the bank paid money on a cheque on GPL’s account held at Republic Bank on the basis of the authorized signatories of GPL. The prosecution has not seen it fit to charge the defendant (Carvil Duncan) with an offence of stealing the bank’s property (money) since the defendant was a duly authorized signatory to the GPL’s account held at the bank.”
This case has been adjourned until September 23.

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