Geisha Kow­lessar

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan has shot back at claims of in­ter­fer­ence in the pros­e­cu­tion of de­tainees un­der the state of emer­gency, as­sert­ing that he will nev­er in­ter­fere in the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP). In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Ram­lo­gan main­tained that the de­ci­sion to pros­e­cute "was and would al­ways re­main the DPP's call." Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard had told the Sun­day Guardian that he would con­tin­ue to jeal­ous­ly guard his of­fice at all costs, adding that no one would be al­lowed to chose at­tor­neys for his of­fice. "No oth­er of­fice hold­er would be al­lowed to choose any at­tor­ney for me for the pros­e­cu­tion for any mat­ter...that choice re­mains mine ex­clu­sive­ly," he had said.

Ram­lo­gan, how­ev­er, yes­ter­day main­tained that the cre­ation of the le­gal team put to­geth­er two weeks af­ter the state of emer­gency was de­clared was done in full con­sul­ta­tion with Gas­pard and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs. "The team was se­lect­ed in con­sul­ta­tion and dis­cus­sion with the DPP who at­tend­ed the first meet­ing along with the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er where it was made clear to every­one that the role and func­tion of the team is to as­sist the po­lice," he said. "I re­in­forced the fact that the DPP main­tained over­all con­trol and in­de­pen­dence with re­spect to pros­e­cu­tion in all mat­ters."

The AG said he al­so ex­plained that se­lec­tion of coun­sel for any pros­e­cu­tion was a mat­ter for the DPP in his "sole judg­ment and dis­cre­tion." The DPP's right to se­lect coun­sel to pros­e­cute crim­i­nal mat­ters "has nev­er been an is­sue," he added. He said he not­ed that the DPP made no al­le­ga­tion of any at­tempt by any pub­lic of­fi­cial to se­lect coun­sel for him."That said, the at­tor­neys who were se­lect­ed on the team tra­di­tion­al­ly have been re­tained by the DPP to pros­e­cute mat­ters on be­half of the State and that was ob­vi­ous­ly a rel­e­vant con­sid­er­a­tion in their se­lec­tion," Ram­lo­gan said.

"The pur­pose of the team is sim­ply to as­sist in prop­er case man­age­ment as we pre­pare for an avalanche of cas­es with re­spect to the state of emer­gency." He said the team was al­so cre­at­ed to pro­vide much-need­ed lo­gis­ti­cal and tech­ni­cal sup­port to the hard-work­ing team of in-house lawyers in the Po­lice Ser­vice. "The in-house team is very small and sim­ply don't have the ca­pac­i­ty to deal with this vol­ume of cas­es," Ram­lo­gan said. Say­ing the func­tion of the team was not "nec­es­sar­i­ly to pros­e­cute," he said prop­er case prepa­ra­tion was cru­cial to pro­vide the DPP with sound ba­sis for crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Ram­lo­gan, there was "no prob­lem" be­tween the of­fices of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the DPP. "The DPP and I en­joy a very healthy, cor­dial, pleas­ant and pro­fes­sion­al work­ing re­la­tion­ship," he said. "We meet reg­u­lar­ly and have a sense of mu­tu­al re­spect and un­der­stand­ing for each oth­er. "I do not think the DPP has said any­thing to call that re­la­tion­ship in­to ques­tion."