Yvonne Ba­boolal

If the 16 peo­ple de­tained by the State over an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate the Prime Min­is­ter and three Cab­i­net Min­is­ters are re­leased with­out charge to­day, it will show that the Gov­ern­ment is a clear and ex­ist­ing threat to T&T, says PNM sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds. "All it will do, in my view, is con­cre­tise that the Gov­ern­ment is a clear and ex­ist­ing threat to T&T and should be re­moved prompt­ly...of course by de­mo­c­ra­t­ic means," Hinds said yes­ter­day. The Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor was re­spond­ing to ques­tions on the re­moval of the state of emer­gency mid­night to­day. When the state of emer­gency is re­moved, the 16 de­tainees who are be­ing held un­der de­ten­tion or­ders may have to be re­leased if no charges have been brought against them.

"Up to now, as we speak, no­body has been charged for any­thing...It's ob­vi­ous they (the po­lice) are hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty with ev­i­dence," Hinds said. "Up to now, the po­lice have not gone to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) for ad­vice. "Nor­mal­ly, when a per­son is ar­rest­ed and charged, the po­lice go to the DPP for ad­vice. "This means they are hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty with ev­i­dence as in the case of the 250 peo­ple who were ar­rest­ed re­cent­ly un­der the An­ti-Gang Act," Hinds re­called. "It (the ar­rest of the 16) is like­ly to go nowhere...We'll have to wait and see."

Asked how the re­lease of the 16 with­out charge would im­pact on the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the Gov­ern­ment, Hinds replied: "I don't think the Gov­ern­ment has too much cred­i­bil­i­ty to lose again." Re­call­ing the ar­rest and re­lease of 250 peo­ple un­der the An­ti-Gang Act dur­ing the re­cent state of emer­gency, he said: "In my opin­ion, the Gov­ern­ment's cred­i­bil­i­ty is al­ready at rock bot­tom. "From the time the plot was an­nounced, the en­tire coun­try demon­strat­ed sus­pi­cion and doubt over the sto­ry." Hinds point­ed out that there seemed to be a con­tra­dic­tion in the sto­ry that the plot to as­sas­si­nate the Prime Min­is­ter was linked to the drug trade and the ar­rest of 16 al­leged Mus­lim ter­ror­ists for want­i­ng to desta­bilise the coun­try.

"I don't think they have fur­ther down to go on the totem pole of in­cred­i­bil­i­ty," he said, list­ing a num­ber of cas­es in which the Gov­ern­ment al­leged­ly mis­led the pop­u­la­tion and told un­truths, in­clud­ing the Resh­mi Ram­nar­ine af­fair. Asked about the ori­gin of the mys­te­ri­ous se­cu­ri­ty eval­u­a­tion re­port which found the as­sas­si­na­tion plot against the PM and min­is­ters to be high­ly spec­u­la­tive, Hinds replied: "It came in Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley's mail­box...He pre­sent­ed the de­tails to the Gov­ern­ment and called on the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter to chal­lenge its va­lid­i­ty. "So far, we've heard noth­ing from them," he added.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan said the re­port was not pre­sent­ed to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil and said it might be fic­ti­tious and bo­gus. Hinds, re­spond­ing, said: "If such a re­port did not go to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, that should tell you about the state of the coun­try. He added: "Well, to­day we will know (its va­lid­i­ty), if the de­tainees are re­leased be­cause there was no ev­i­dence to charge them."