Richard?Lord

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi con­firmed yes­ter­day that his fam­i­ly had re­ceived a threat as­sess­ment and in­struc­tion from the army af­ter he re­ceived sev­er­al deaths threats since he as­sumed of­fice last year.

He made the com­ment dur­ing a hasti­ly called news con­fer­ence out­side Par­lia­ment, as he re­spond­ed to sug­ges­tion in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives ear­li­er by Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal that a Cab­i­net min­is­ter's chil­dren had been pho­tographed with guns.

While he de­scribed Mooni­lal as rep­re­hen­si­ble for mak­ing the al­le­ga­tions, he con­firmed that since he as­sumed of­fice in Sep­tem­ber 2015 he was the sub­ject of count­less death threats. He said as a con­se­quence, a threat as­sess­ment "on the AG and his fam­i­ly was con­duct­ed by the se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies in T&T."

He said af­ter the treat as­sess­ment was con­duct­ed, "the se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies in­di­cat­ed that it was im­per­a­tive that in­ter­na­tion­al pro­to­cols for train­ing how (when) peo­ple are ex­posed to threats had to be de­liv­ered by the se­cu­ri­ty forces to me and to my fam­i­ly."

He said: "Up­on the in­struc­tions of the army in par­tic­u­lar, my fam­i­ly was tak­en up to the Cu­mu­to base where in­struc­tions (about) threats to our per­sons were pro­vid­ed."

Al-Rawi said the pro­to­cols were "very care­ful­ly di­rect­ed un­der the su­per­vi­sion of the army at all points in time. They went through what threats look like, what pan­ic can cause in the mid­dle of a threat against your life, how ag­gres­sors be­have, how the per­son­al se­cu­ri­ty in these sit­u­a­tions be­have and what is to be ex­pect­ed."

He said both him­self and Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs, Stu­art Young, were the re­cip­i­ents of "umpteen death threats" since as­sum­ing of­fice, adding Young al­so re­ceived sim­i­lar threat as­sess­ments with him at one point.

How­ev­er, Al-Rawi said he want­ed to say cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that "for some­one such as Roodal Mooni­lal, who act­ed as prime min­is­ter of T&T, to raise the is­sue of chil­dren in a bud­get de­bate I find most rep­re­hen­si­ble."

"This was a sim­ple mat­ter of se­cu­ri­ty, mak­ing sure that their tar­gets of pro­tec­tion are or­gan­ised and in­formed on their in­ter­na­tion­al pro­to­cols," he said, adding that he was "very com­fort­able that my po­si­tion is clear and I hold Dr Mooni­lal in se­ri­ous con­tempt of moral­i­ty."

The AG said for the Op­po­si­tion MP "to drag (my) fam­i­ly mem­bers and par­tic­u­lar­ly teenaged chil­dren in­to a con­ver­sa­tion for po­lit­i­cal mileage is not­ing short of the low­est, most base form of en­gage­ment in the pol­i­tics of T&T."

He in­sist­ed the threat as­sess­ment against him was "sig­nif­i­cant" and re­ceives con­stant at­ten­tion by the se­cu­ri­ty au­thor­i­ties. He said for se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons he was not pre­pared to say more on the mat­ter, but ad­mit­ted that his fam­i­ly ben­e­fit­ted from in­ter­na­tion­al pro­to­cols on threat as­sess­ment. He con­firmed that "it was un­der the di­rect care and su­per­vi­sion of the spe­cial forces and the army it­self and it was en­tire­ly in their camp."

With­in hours of Mooni­lal mak­ing the claims, pho­tos of two teenagers, a boy and girl, train­ing with high-tech weapons, sur­faced on­line. Asked if he was not con­cerned that pho­tos of his chil­dren could be on­line, Al-Rawi said pho­tos could be al­tered with the tech­nol­o­gy avail­able to­day. He said he was con­cerned about the source of the pic­tures.

...as Mooni­lal talks of Min­is­ter's rel­a­tives with guns in on­line pho­tos

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal yes­ter­day pro­duced pho­tographs of chil­dren who he claimed have a strik­ing re­sem­blance to se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials pos­ing with UMP 9mm guns which the T&T De­fence Force us­es.

Out­raged by the pho­tographs, Mooni­lal said he in­tend­ed to send to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi copies of the pic­tures for their pe­rusal and to take ac­tion since it was "wrong."

He said we can­not build a so­ci­ety when we en­cour­age chil­dren to use guns as "if it was a game and toy," stat­ing that there were Gov­ern­ment mem­bers who "in­ad­ver­tent­ly, by their ut­ter­ance, was en­cour­ag­ing crime."

Mooni­lal said the pho­tographs could be viewed on a Face­book page named "Kick out the PNM."

He made the dis­clo­sure while de­liv­er­ing his con­tri­bu­tion in the bud­get de­bate yes­ter­day, which cre­at­ed an up­roar in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

"It was shock­ing for me to re­ceive pho­tographs of young chil­dren in this coun­try with high- pow­ered weapons train­ing some­where. I am told the UMP 9mm cal­i­bre. It is fright­en­ing us­ing these weapons that have been is­sued ... are com­mon to the De­fence Force of Trinidad and To­ba­go," Mooni­lal said.

He said what was even more fright­en­ing was "I am told that these chil­dren bear a strik­ing re­sem­blance to a se­nior Cab­i­net min­is­ter."

Gov­ern­ment Leader of the House, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, ob­ject­ed to Mooni­lal's state­ment, cit­ing Stand­ing Or­der 48 (6) by im­put­ing "im­prop­er mo­tives re­gard­ing chil­dren of Cab­i­net min­is­ters."

House Speak­er Brigid An­nisette-George told Mooni­lal to with­draw his state­ment, which he did.

Mooni­lal then rephrased his state­ment, stat­ing that "there are chil­dren with a strik­ing re­sem­blance to se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials" pos­ing with the guns.

He said the chil­dren took the pho­tographs with the guns as a way to gallery.