Richard Lord

Sacked chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) Nizam Mo­hammed says he is a vic­tim of breach of nat­ur­al jus­tice and process.Mo­hammed made the state­ment in a brief in­ter­view last night, hours af­ter Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards re­voked his ap­point­ment as chair­man of the com­mis­sion.Mo­hammed added the Pres­i­dent must ex­plain why his ap­point­ment was re­voked. He in­sist­ed he did noth­ing wrong and breached no law.Richards re­voked the ap­point­ment on the grounds that Mo­hammed failed to per­form his du­ties in a re­spon­si­ble or time­ly man­ner and demon­strat­ed a lack of com­pe­tence.The re­vo­ca­tion of Mo­hammed's ap­point­ment took ef­fect im­me­di­ate­ly.In a TV6 in­ter­view last night, Mo­hammed claimed he was a "vic­tim of racist jour­nal­ists and was paint­ed as a racist."

He said: "This has start­ed by racist jour­nal­ists. They made me the cul­prit and putting me in­to a cor­ner now as if I am the racist. "I am sor­ry for T&T and the vic­tims of crimes and sor­ry for the many African po­lice of­fi­cers and the many In­di­an of­fi­cers who feel they don't have a fair break while work­ing in the Po­lice Ser­vice."Mo­hammed said he had met with the Pres­i­dent on Fri­day and asked for time on a le­gal opin­ion."Tell me what is wrong. No one is an­swer­ing or pro­vid­ing those an­swers. I am sur­prised the Pres­i­dent act­ed so swift­ly, We on­ly met Fri­day and I asked him for time."We were seek­ing a le­gal opin­ion on the mat­ters he had raised...and to­day out of the blue I got this." Mo­hammed said.Richards said Mo­hammed's ap­point­ment was re­voked un­der Sec­tion 122A (1) (d) and (f) of the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) Act 2006.Sec­tion 122A (1) says: "The Pres­i­dent shall, af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter and the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, ter­mi­nate the ap­point­ment of a mem­ber of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, if the mem­ber:

(d) fails to per­form his du­ties in a re­spon­si­ble or time­ly man­ner; and,

(f) demon­strates a lack of com­pe­tence to per­form his du­ties.

Mo­hammed an­gered large sec­tions of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley and po­lice of­fi­cers, when he told a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on March 25 there was an eth­nic im­bal­ance in the Po­lice Ser­vice.He said then that the pop­u­la­tion com­prised 50 per­cent East In­di­ans and that was not re­flec­tive in the hi­er­ar­chy of the Po­lice Ser­vice. He said he would work with the Par­lia­ment to ad­dress that mat­ter.

The PM said Mo­hammed's com­ments were "reck­less and di­vi­sive" and did not rep­re­sent the views of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment.Row­ley said Mo­hammed's con­duct in pub­lic of­fice left a lot to be de­sired and he should re­sign.Mo­hammed main­tained his in­no­cence un­til Fri­day af­ter meet­ing with Pres­i­dent Richards."I have done no wrong," he in­sist­ed then.Yes­ter­day he de­clined com­ment when con­tact­ed for com­ment short­ly af­ter his re­vo­ca­tion was made pub­lic.He said he had oth­er mat­ters oc­cu­py­ing his at­ten­tion and was un­able to com­ment on the re­vo­ca­tion of his ap­point­ment.

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Pres­i­dent ter­mi­nat­ed Mo­hammed's ap­point­ment ac­cord­ing to the law."The Pres­i­dent has now act­ed in ac­cor­dance with the Con­sti­tu­tion and I re­spect the de­ci­sion of the Pres­i­dent," she added.Row­ley, in his re­sponse, said the en­tire mat­ter could have been avoid­ed if the Gov­ern­ment had heed­ed his call not to ap­point Mo­hammed be­cause he was "still an ac­tive politi­cian."Row­ley said Mo­hammed's "reck­less and di­vi­sive state­ment con­firmed he was not the man for the job. Sor­ry to say we were right on this is­sue."

He said he was dis­ap­point­ed that Mo­hammed opt­ed to be de­fi­ant and not re­sign in the face of pub­lic con­dem­na­tion.Row­ley said Mo­hammed should have ac­cept­ed that it would not have been pos­si­ble for him to func­tion as chair­man of the PSC."The schism be­tween him and his oth­er com­mis­sion­ers over this very se­ri­ous and sen­si­tive mat­ter made it un­ten­able for him to re­main as chair­man of that body," Row­ley said.He said Mo­hammed should have re­signed and saved the Pres­i­dent and the Prime Min­is­ter for the pub­lic em­bar­rass­ment he caused.

"Had the Pres­i­dent not act­ed it would have sent a sig­nal that the pres­i­den­cy of T&T is use­less," Row­ley said.He lat­er filed a mo­tion for de­bate in Par­lia­ment lat­er this month. The mo­tion calls on the House to con­demn Mo­hammed reck­less and di­vi­sive state­ment.Row­ley in­sist­ed yes­ter­day de­spite the fact that Mo­hammed's ap­point­ment was re­voked it did not clear the is­sue.He added: "The peo­ple's rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the Par­lia­ment need to prop­er­ly de­bate this mat­ter so the pub­lic can be fur­ther in­formed about the fact of the sit­u­a­tion and bring clar­i­ty to the Pres­i­dent's ac­tions."He said he ex­pect­ed the co-op­er­a­tion of the Gov­ern­ment to have the mo­tion de­bat­ed on April 20.

Mo­hammed was ap­point­ed chair­man of the PSC on Ju­ly 21, 2010, for a three-year pe­ri­od.Oth­er mem­bers ap­point­ed by then act­ing Pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith, were Mar­tin George, Jacque­line Cheesman, Ken­neth Park­er and Ad­di­son Khan.At a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, com­mis­sion­ers Cheesman, George and Park­er dis­tanced them­selves from the re­cent com­ments by Mo­hammed.Ad­di­son was not present at the news con­fer­ence, which was held at the Mar­riott Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain.The three said the com­mis­sion had a lot of work to do and a meet­ing is sched­uled for Thurs­day.They said Pres­i­dent Richards had the au­thor­i­ty to choose a new chair­man. George said the com­mis­sion could meet with a quo­rum of three.