JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, May 3, 2025

Govt says step down but Hafizool defiant

Asked to step down as com­mis­sion­er in coup en­quiry...

by

20130131

The Gov­ern­ment has asked Dr Hafi­zo­ol Mo­hammed to step down as a mem­ber of the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the 1990 coup at­tempt, in the light of rev­e­la­tions about his aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions, but he has re­fused.

The T&T Guardian learned at­tor­neys Jagdeo Singh–who is al­so one of the at­tor­neys for the com­mis­sion–and Min­is­ter of Jus­tice Christlyn Moore met with Mo­hammed around 5 pm on Tues­day at the Hilton Trinidad, St Ann's, in an at­tempt to con­vince him to step aside.

The meet­ing last­ed for more than five hours, but Mo­hammed re­fused to budge.The Sun­day Guardian re­port­ed last week that Mo­hammed ob­tained his DSc in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions from At­lantic In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty (AIU), which is de­scribed by var­i­ous Web sites as a diplo­ma mill.

Mo­hammed, who has asked to be ex­cused from the com­mis­sion to seek le­gal ad­vice, ad­mit­ted to ob­tain­ing the un­ac­cred­it­ed de­gree be­cause of his age and the flex­i­bil­i­ty it of­fered.He is ex­pect­ed to pro­duce sev­er­al cer­tifi­cates to prove his oth­er qual­i­fi­ca­tions at a press con­fer­ence sched­uled for this af­ter­noon at the cham­bers of at­tor­ney Mar­tin George in the Guardian build­ing, Port-of-Spain.

Cab­i­net sources yes­ter­day said the ex­pla­na­tion he gave for ob­tain­ing the DSc and list­ing a dead T&T pres­i­dent, Sir El­lis Clarke, and a non-ex­is­tent Turk­ish one on his CV did not sit well with sev­er­al min­is­ters."Things are just not adding up and he was giv­en the op­tion to step down. We are await­ing the re­sponse from his lawyers at this time," a Cab­i­net source dis­closed.

But new in­for­ma­tion sur­fac­ing now sug­gests even be­fore the rev­e­la­tions about Mo­hammed's DSc were made pub­lic, a cab­i­net min­is­ter was con­cerned over the ap­point­ment and in­formed At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan.

Asked on Wednes­day if any is­sues had pre­vi­ous­ly been raised about Mo­hammed's back­ground, Ram­lo­gan replied, "I was nev­er aware."

To a ques­tion about why the dis­crep­an­cies in Mo­hammed's CV were not picked up, Ram­lo­gan said, "You are as­sum­ing that the same CV you have is the one that was sup­plied to me."

Asked if he was im­ply­ing that a dif­fer­ent CV was sent to him, Ram­lo­gan said, "I was very care­ful with my words, and said what was pro­vid­ed on the CV to me was ver­i­fied."

Re­mind­ed that the Amer­i­can Mil­i­tary Uni­ver­si­ty said it had no record of Mo­hammed be­ing a stu­dent there, Ram­lo­gan replied, "I can't com­ment on that. If and when that is pro­vid­ed in writ­ing, I pre­sume he will have to an­swer to that."

Al­so caus­ing con­cern were oth­er claims in Mo­hammed's CV, in which he list­ed a stint as chief ad­min­is­tra­tor of the North At­lantic Treaty Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Na­to) in Turkey be­tween Ju­ly 1995 and De­cem­ber 1996.

Na­to's on­line list­ing of key per­son­nel from 1951 to the present does not in­clude Mo­hammed in any se­nior ad­min­is­tra­tive ca­pac­i­ty.

Min­is­ters al­so ex­pressed con­cern over Mo­hammed's state­ment that he had been chief of the hu­man re­source, plans and poli­cies di­vi­sion at the US Army Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Com­mand at Fort Bragg, North Car­oli­na. While there, he said he par­tic­i­pat­ed in op­er­a­tions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, So­ma­lia, Rwan­da, South Ko­rea and Haiti.

The US army asked the T&T Guardian to e-mail its re­quest for ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the in­for­ma­tion. A re­sponse is ex­pect­ed to­day.

Both the PM's se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er, Gary Grif­fith, and for­mer ju­nior Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Don­na Cox, al­so said they had no knowl­edge of the post of se­nior in­ter­op­er­abil­i­ty an­a­lyst for the strate­gic di­vi­sion and in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs di­vi­sion of the T&T gov­ern­ment, an­oth­er po­si­tion Mo­hammed says he held.

What Mo­hammed's CV says

Mo­hammed is pres­i­dent and CEO of Peosys (www.peosys.us), based in Vir­ginia, in the Wash­ing­ton DC met­ro­pol­i­tan area.His wife Rosemin Mo­hammed is its chief op­er­at­ing of­fi­cer and vice-pres­i­dent.

The com­pa­ny's Web site de­scribes it as a "Small Dis­ad­van­taged Busi­ness, Ser­vice-Dis­abled Vet­er­an-Owned Busi­ness."

Dr H Ali Mo­hammed found­ed Peosys LLC in 2000, says the Web site, "with the prin­ci­pals (sic) of pro­vid­ing ex­pe­ri­enced man­age­ment con­sult­ing re­sources to US fed­er­al, state and lo­cal gov­ern­ments, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, pri­vate agen­cies and in­ter­na­tion­al gov­ern­ments."

The com­pa­ny of­fers "a laser-like full life cy­cle sup­port in­clud­ing key per­for­mance met­rics to tai­lor a so­lu­tion."

Among the ser­vices it of­fers are:

�2 pro­fes­sion­al and man­age­ment de­vel­op­ment train­ing

�2 ed­u­ca­tion­al sup­port

�2 graph­ic de­sign

�2 da­ta ware­hous­ing/cus­tom com­put­er pro­gram­ming

�2 com­put­er sys­tems de­sign

�2 child care

Mo­hammed's en­try in World­wide Who's Who (http://hal­imo­hammed.com) says:

�2"Draw­ing on his ex­pe­ri­ence as a se­nior in­ter­op­er­abil­i­ty an­a­lyst for the strate­gic di­vi­sion and in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs di­vi­sion of the Trinida­di­an gov­ern­ment, Dr Mo­hammed worked for the US Pen­ta­gon...In the com­ing years, Dr Mo­hammed in­tends to ex­pand his busi­ness in­ter­na­tion­al­ly through brand­ing, net­work­ing, and con­sult­ing."

�2It says he is af­fil­i­at­ed with: the Mid­dle East In­sti­tute, the Wash­ing­ton In­sti­tute for Near East Pol­i­cy, the Brook­ings In­sti­tu­tion, Coun­terin­sur­gency Cen­ter, US De­part­ment of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, and the VFW.

(VFW is Vet­er­ans of For­eign Wars, an of­fi­cial non­prof­it ser­vice or­gan­i­sa­tion for US mil­i­tary vet­er­ans.)

�2His day-to-day re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in­clude: "Ful­fill­ing a con­tract with the gov­ern­ment of T&T as a com­mis­sion­er of in­quiry; re­search­ing the coup in 1990; in­ves­ti­gat­ing and pro­vid­ing his find­ings re­gard­ing the events that led to this coup, such as the short­com­ings of gov­ern­ment agen­cies."

�2The awards and ho­n­ours he has re­ceived are list­ed as:

Le­gion of Mer­it; Bronze Star Medal for Com­bat Hero­ism; Three-Time Re­cip­i­ent, De­fense Mer­i­to­ri­ous Ser­vice Medal; Four-Time Re­cip­i­ent, Mer­i­to­ri­ous Ser­vice Medal; Two-Time Re­cip­i­ent, Joint Ser­vice Com­men­da­tion Medal; Three-Time Re­cip­i­ent, Army Com­men­da­tion Medal; Two-Time Re­cip­i­ent, Joint Ser­vice Achieve­ment Medal; Army Achieve­ment Medal; Good Con­duct Medal; Na­tion­al De­fense Ser­vice Medal with One Bronze Star; Armed Forces Ex­pe­di­tionary Medal with One Bronze Star; South West Asia Ser­vice Medal with Two Bronze Stars; Ko­rea Ser­vice Medal; Armed Forces Ser­vice Medal; Hu­man­i­tar­i­an Ser­vice Medal; Armed Forces Re­serve Medal; Mil­i­tary Out­stand­ing Vol­un­tary Ser­vice Medal; NCO Pro­fes­sion­al De­vel­op­ment Rib­bon with Nu­mer­ic 3; NA­TO Medal; Sau­di Kuwaiti Lib­er­a­tion Medal; Kuwaiti Lib­er­a­tion Medal; Over­seas Ser­vice Rib­bon with Nu­mer­ic 5; Army Ser­vice Rib­bon; Para­chute Badge; Mer­i­to­ri­ous Unit Com­men­da­tion; Two-Time Re­cip­i­ent, Army Su­pe­ri­or Unit Award; Joint Mer­i­to­ri­ous Unit Award; Re­pub­lic of Ko­rea Army Novice Air­borne Badge.

Mo­hammed's sev­en-page CV in­cludes the fol­low­ing po­si­tions and as­sign­ments, some of which he list­ed as se­cret or top se­cret:

�2Mid­dle East Desk Of­fi­cer/Se­nior In­ter­op­er­abil­i­ty An­a­lyst, HQ, De­part­ment of the Army In­ter­na­tion­al Af­fairs and Strate­gic Plan­ning, the Pen­ta­gon (top se­cret) 2006-11

–Sub­ject Mat­ter Ex­pert for the MId­dle East, (in­clud­ing Asia, Pa­cif­ic, North Amer­i­ca, and Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean) (sic)

�2Con­sul­tant, Un­der Sec­re­tary of De­fense (Per­son­nel & Readi­ness), Pen­ta­gon 2004-5

–Co-founder for the es­tab­lish­ment of the Mil­i­tary Se­vere­ly In­jured Joint Sup­port Op­er­a­tions Cen­ter, lat­er re­ferred to as the Wound­ed War­rior Pro­gram

How­ev­er, Wikipedia says: "The Wound­ed War­rior Project was found­ed in 2002 in Roanoke, Vir­ginia by John Melia with the as­sis­tance of fam­i­ly and friends...Be­sides John, the orig­i­nal founders of WWP in­clud­ed Jim Melia (John's broth­er), John F Melia (John's fa­ther), Al Gior­dano and Steven Nardizzi."

�2 Con­sul­tant, US Sen­ate (top se­cret) 2002

Draft­ed nu­clear, bi­o­log­i­cal and chem­i­cal threat as­sess­ment for the US Sen­ate

�2 UN rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Na­to, Bosnia, 1997

–De­vel­oped pro­gramme to pre­vent Serbs, Croats and Bosni­ans from en­gag­ing in eth­nic cleans­ing and geno­cide

–Pre­pared fed­er­a­tion for its first de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions

�2 Chief ad­min­is­tra­tor, Na­to, Turkey 1995-96

�2 Bat­tal­ion com­man­der, 18th Air­borne Per­son­nel and Ad­min­is­tra­tion Bat­tal­ion, Desert Storm, 1991

–Led 1,200 air­borne sol­diers

Ac­cord­ing to his CV, his pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence in­cludes:

�2 "Sol­id ad­vis­er and con­sul­tant in the Mid­dle East ex­clu­sive­ly" (sic). Mo­hammed's clients are list­ed as: the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, Sau­di Ara­bia, Jor­dan, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Aus­tralia, South Ko­rea, Japan, In­dia, Pak­istan, Cana­da, Turkey, Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, Na­to, the UN, Dept of De­fense.

�2 Spe­cial ad­vis­er and con­sul­tant to UN, Na­to, Am­bas­sadors, Gen­er­al Of­fi­cers, Par­lia­ments and Po­lit­i­cal Lead­ers

�2 In­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tant, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates June 11-present

�2 Peosys was con­tract­ed with the US Dept of La­bor in In­fo tech­nol­o­gy and man­age­ment (se­cret) Dec 2008-June 2011. The com­pa­ny, ac­cord­ing to Mo­hammed,

–eval­u­at­ed da­ta sources and key per­for­mance tar­gets us­ing da­ta sets, in­te­gra­tion and con­sis­ten­cies with var­i­ous re­port­ing meth­ods

–im­ple­ment­ed en­ter­prise da­ta ware­house al­low­ing users to ac­cess and analyse pro­gram da­ta for dif­fer­ent pro­grams through a sin­gle por­tal

–saved hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars through ef­fi­cien­cy

A search at www.Fed­Spend­ing.org for the pe­ri­od 2000-2012 shows that con­tracts award­ed to Peosys amount­ed to US$1,003,495 in 2010; US$985,000 in 2009; and US$5,700 in 2008.

Among the ref­er­ees Mo­hammed lists in his CV are:

�2 Mustapha Ibra­ham, Chief Jus­tice of T&T (sic)

�2 Dr Neal (sic) Parsan, T&T am­bas­sador to the US

�2 Dr the Hon Sir Richard Chel­tenham...Chief Jus­tice of Bar­ba­dos (sic)

Aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ments:

Mo­hammed's the­sis, Law and Pol­i­tics in Is­lam, pro­duced as part of his doc­tor­ate in in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs at the un­ac­cred­it­ed At­lantic In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty, is 70 pages long, in­clud­ing a four-page bib­li­og­ra­phy and two pages of in­tro­duc­tion. Nu­mer­ous pas­sages of the the­sis are tak­en ver­ba­tim and un­cred­it­ed from on­line re­sources that in­clude Wikipedia, Is­lam­o­pe­dia On­line and why­is­lam.org.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored