Lutchman Sooknandan

Sooknandan came to Belize immediately after his law school graduation to work in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, and remained in the country thereafter. He first became DPP in 1992, serving until 1994. He was appointed DPP again on 9 January 2007. One high-profile case which Sooknandan had to take on early in his was the prosecution of politically connected suspect Chayben Abou-Nehra for the murder of Shawn Copius in 2005, which was marred by police refusal to arrest him along with the disappearance of key evidence from his file before Sooknandan took office, and ended with a declaration of nolle prosequi; Sooknandan himself described the police's conduct as creating "the most shameful miscarriage of justice" he had ever seen. When questioned about his office's low conviction rate the following year, he laid the blame at the feet of the police's low investigative standards.

Sooknandan grew up in Anna Regina, Guyana. His brother, novelist Karan Chand, followed him to Belize in 1989 and worked as an administrator at St. Michael's College; he later moved to Ontario, Canada. Their father Sooknandan Ghasi, a native of Kolkata, West Bengal, India, came to Guyana in the early 20th century. Sooknandan did his legal education at the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad and Tobago, graduating in 1986. Sooknandan is a naturalised citizen of Belize, though he states that when he first came in 1986 he did not originally intend to settle down in the country. He also holds permanent resident status in Canada.

Lutchman Sooknandan (born 21 March 1948) is a Guyanese-Belizean lawyer. He previously served as Belize's Director of Public Prosecutions, practices law privately at Sooknandan's Law Firm, and serves as Guyana's honorary consul in Belize.