Renu­ka Singh

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar may be blind­sided by a new re­port filed by for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith with the po­lice, in which he names three of her Cab­i­net min­is­ters in the chain of events that were set off by Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty di­rec­tor David West's in­volve­ment in a civ­il mat­ter be­tween for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr. Kei­th Row­ley.

The Sun­day Guardian learned that Grif­fith filed the new re­port with the po­lice in­ves­ti­gat­ing wit­ness-tam­per­ing al­le­ga­tions against Ram­lo­gan, aris­ing out of the civ­il mat­ter, on Fri­day. In it, he al­leges Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol McLeod and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath were present dur­ing a meet­ing he at­tend­ed at her of­fice in St Clair on Jan­u­ary 29, while she met with the rest of Cab­i­net in a near­by room.

Asked if she was aware of the lat­est de­vel­op­ment yes­ter­day via a text mes­sage, Per­sad-Bisses­sar texted a sim­ple "no."But the Sun­day Guardian learned yes­ter­day that the new re­port de­scribes the im­promp­tu meet­ing be­tween Grif­fith, Bharath, Mooni­lal and McLeod on Jan­u­ary 29 and states that nei­ther Mooni­lal nor McLeod made any con­tri­bu­tion in the meet­ing, but would have wit­nessed the dis­cus­sions be­tween Bharath and Grif­fith.

The im­promp­tu meet­ing is among four which oc­curred at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter on the said day (Jan­u­ary 29) while the rest of Cab­i­net met in an­oth­er room, Grif­fith's state­ment claims.

The re­port al­so con­tains copies of text mes­sages be­tween Grif­fith and Bharath in the days af­ter it was re­vealed that the for­mer was list­ed as a key wit­ness in West's state­ment al­leg­ing that Ram­lo­gan used the PCA job as an in­duce­ment to him to with­draw his state­ment in sup­port of Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, in a defama­tion law­suit brought by Ram­lo­gan against Row­ley.

Grif­fith backed up West's state­ment, al­leg­ing that Ram­lo­gan had con­tact­ed him (Grif­fith) ask­ing that he con­tact West to find out whether he had with­drawn that state­ment. Grif­fith has main­tained, how­ev­er, that he did not know the con­tents of the state­ment the for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al was re­fer­ring to when he de­liv­ered the mes­sage to West at Ram­lo­gan's be­hest.

Text mes­sage ev­i­dence

One of the texts in­clud­ed in the re­port, al­leged­ly from Bharath to Grif­fifth, asks Grif­fith to con­sid­er whether his "part­ners would be­lieve that he did not know what state­ment the AG was re­fer­ring to."That text al­leged­ly came af­ter Grif­fith be­gan to de­fend his stance on the mat­ter in the me­dia af­ter pub­lic furore over the al­le­ga­tions against Ram­lo­gan by West.

The Sun­day Guardian al­so learned that Grif­fith is weigh­ing his le­gal op­tions against Bharath over a press state­ment Bharath is­sued last Sun­day, the day be­fore Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that both Grif­fith and Ram­lo­gan had re­signed.

Bharath, in that me­dia re­lease, dis­missed re­ports that Grif­fith was be­ing "pres­sured to with­draw a wit­ness state­ment" dur­ing the Cab­i­net meet­ing on Jan­u­ary 29. Bharath then ac­cused Grif­fith of com­pro­mis­ing the in­tegri­ty of Cab­i­net "with­out any clear or ra­tio­nal rea­son."Both Griffth and Ram­lo­gan were fired the fol­low­ing Mon­day by Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing a pub­lic ad­dress to the na­tion in which she al­so reshuf­fled her Cab­i­net.

Those close to Grif­fith are now won­der­ing, if Grif­fith was re­moved for be­ing list­ed as a wit­ness in a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion how the PM will treat with this new de­vel­op­ment.

Bharath wary of me­dia leaks

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Bharath said he was more con­cerned that de­tails of a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion were be­ing ven­ti­lat­ed in the me­dia. He did not com­ment or ex­press any con­cern that he was named in Grif­fith's po­lice state­ment, in­stead say­ing that it "is a mat­ter of grave con­cern" that the me­dia had copies of the po­lice re­port.

"I would hate to think that some­one is leak­ing doc­u­ments from po­lice files to the me­dia. To do so would be at best mis­chie­vous and at worst, in­tend­ed to cor­rupt any in­ves­ti­ga­tion that po­lice may deem prop­er," Bharath said.Bharath said that it was in the pub­lic's in­ter­est to let po­lice mat­ters pro­ceed with­out "unau­tho­rised in­ter­fer­ence by third par­ties."

"With this in mind, I be­lieve that the prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the al­le­ga­tions you have raised would be best served by re­serv­ing com­ment un­til such time as the mat­ter may be in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the per­sons au­tho­rised to do so," Bharath said.