Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an is the man who sug­gest­ed Dr Hafi­zo­ol Mo­hammed to Cab­i­net as a mem­ber of the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the 1990 coup at­tempt. How­ev­er, even as he ad­mit­ted to rec­om­mend­ing the man whose qual­i­fi­ca­tions to sit as a com­mis­sion­er are now be­ing con­test­ed, the Prime Min­is­ter yes­ter­day called on Dook­er­an to ex­plain his nom­i­na­tion of Mo­hammed.?

The ques­tion of why Mo­hammed's cur­ricu­lum vi­tae (CV) was not prop­er­ly vet­ted re­mained unan­swered yes­ter­day but Dook­er­an, in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with T&T Guardian at his min­istry's of­fice at Hy­att Re­gency, Port-of-Spain, said he need­ed to clear the air on the con­tro­ver­sial ap­point­ment. Dook­er­an claimed Mo­hammed had ini­tial­ly of­fered his ser­vices by e-mail.

"Mr Mo­hammed made con­tact with me a few years be­fore the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion while he (Mo­hammed) was in Wash­ing­ton DC, and he in­formed me he had a long ca­reer in mil­i­tary in the US as a Trinidad-born cit­i­zen. He said he was about to re­tire short­ly and was will­ing to serve the coun­try," he said.

Dook­er­an said he met with Mo­hammed some time in 2010 and he con­firmed he had a ca­reer in the US mil­i­tary and had reached a se­nior po­si­tion."I had no rea­son to be­lieve it was not true," said Dook­er­an."I said fine. When the mat­ter of the com­mis­sion in­to the coup came up, I sug­gest­ed that we need­ed some­body with a se­cu­ri­ty back­ground.

"I was asked by the AG to sub­mit any name, so I sub­mit­ted his (Mo­hammed's name)."Stress­ing that he on­ly sub­mit­ted Mo­hammed's name for con­sid­er­a­tion, Dook­er­an point­ed out that At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan was re­spon­si­ble for Mo­hammed's even­tu­al se­lec­tion to the com­mis­sion.

"I did so on the grounds that he said he had a strong mil­i­tary back­ground," Dook­er­an said."I did not make the de­ci­sion," he added."A com­mis­sion of en­quiry falls un­der the AG. I am say­ing I on­ly sub­mit­ted his name and I for­ward­ed his CV for con­sid­er­a­tion and it was agreed to. To me, it seemed plau­si­ble that a Trinida­di­an-born who is about to re­tire was will­ing to serve. He did not say where but in­di­cat­ed he was will­ing to serve."

Ad­mit­ting he could not re­call the ref­er­ences list­ed on Mo­hammed's CV, Dook­er­an said: "I can­not re­mem­ber and I can­not find it (CV). It is not too im­por­tant right now. My con­cern was his aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions."Ram­lo­gan lat­er took the rec­om­men­da­tion to Cab­i­net for Mo­hammed to be ap­point­ed a com­mi­sion­er. The rec­om­men­da­tion was ac­cept­ed some time in 2010.

Yes­ter­day, Dook­er­an ad­mit­ted Mo­hammed did not tell him his Doc­tor­ate of Sci­ence (DSc) in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions came from At­lantic Uni­ver­si­ty, which is de­scribed by var­i­ous Web sites as a diplo­ma mill."No, he did not say so at the time," Dook­er­an said.He ad­mit­ted he called Mo­hammed yes­ter­day af­ter read­ing an ex­clu­sive T&T Guardian ar­ti­cle which raised is­sues about the lat­ter's qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

Asked if he ever at­tempt­ed to ver­i­fy the in­for­ma­tion on Mo­hammed's CV be­fore the T&T Guardian broke the sto­ry, he said: "What he told me then is what he told me to­day (yes­ter­day). "When I spoke to him he said his last po­si­tion was deputy chief of staff in Fort Meade, Mary­land. He al­so said he worked as a con­sul­tant at the Pen­ta­gon. He con­firmed that all mil­i­tary cre­den­tials were true.

"The Prime Min­is­ter asked if I can ver­i­fy what Mo­hammed claimed, giv­en that I sub­mit­ted his name for con­sid­er­a­tion. He (Mo­hammed) told me the same thing again."Dook­er­an ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that he for­got to ask yes­ter­day how come the Amer­i­can Mil­i­tary Uni­ver­si­ty had no records of Mo­hammed in its data­base.

Mo­hammed asked for time off from the com­mis­sion yes­ter­day to deal with the is­sues aris­ing out of the re­port, which high­light­ed his un­ac­cred­it­ed DSc de­gree and the fact that he list­ed a dead pres­i­dent, Sir El­lis Clarke, and a non-ex­is­tent pres­i­dent of Turkey, as well as sev­er­al gov­ern­ment min­is­ters on his CV.

Chair­man of the com­mis­sion Sir David Sim­mons and vice chair­man Bar­ba­di­an at­tor­ney Richard Chel­tenham al­so were list­ed as ref­er­ees.Mo­hammed has since re­tained at­tor­ney Mar­tin An­tho­ny George to rep­re­sent him.De­fend­ing his own po­si­tion, Ram­lo­gan, who is the le­gal ad­vis­er to Cab­i­net, said Mo­hammed was ap­point­ed be­cause of his claim to have a mil­i­tary train­ing and back­ground.

"Be­cause he was an of­fi­cer who served in the US Army he was in fact rec­om­mend­ed and nom­i­nat­ed as a suit­able can­di­date by Min­is­ter Dook­er­an who was the then leader of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple."Ram­lo­gan said he was nev­er made aware of any is­sues con­cern­ing Mo­hammed's mil­i­tary back­ground.

"It was a crit­i­cal area that mo­ti­vat­ed the con­sid­er­a­tion and no is­sues were made," he said. Asked why dis­crep­an­cies were not picked up when Mo­hammed's CV was vet­ted, Ram­lo­gan replied: "Mr Mo­hammed pro­vid­ed am­ple and suit­ed ev­i­dence by way of cer­tifi­cates from the uni­ver­si­ty that he at­tend­ed.

"Up­on re­quest he pro­vide copies of the cer­tifi­cates that were men­tioned on the CV that was sup­plied to us. Our pri­ma­ry fo­cus was on his mil­i­tary ex­pe­ri­ence and back­ground so the qual­i­ty of his aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions were not as rel­e­vant."Ram­lo­gan said the chair­man of the com­mis­sion, which con­tin­ues to­day with Mo­hammed, would no doubt dis­cuss the mat­ter and the nec­es­sary en­quiries would be made to ver­i­fy the ac­cu­ra­cy of what was pub­lished.

He added: "When that ex­er­cise is com­plet­ed, if it is that his mil­i­tary ex­pe­ri­ence and train­ing is not con­firmed then that will present an is­sue that has to be ad­dressed."I am more con­cerned about the aca­d­e­m­ic is­sues be­cause his role and pur­pose was to pro­vide the com­mis­sion with the views of some­one with ex­per­tise mil­i­tary back­ground."