No head­way.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has not been able to ob­tain any state­ment from PNM MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald re­gard­ing re­cent rev­e­la­tions that Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, be­fore Au­gust 2019, tipped off Mc­Don­ald that she was go­ing to be ar­rest­ed.

This was con­firmed on Thurs­day by top po­lice sources spear­head­ing the mat­ter.

They said, “We’ve hit a wall. Since no state­ment was ob­tained from ei­ther Mc­Don­ald or Per­sad-Bisses­sar, noth­ing fur­ther can be done. This is a dead is­sue.”

The con­fir­ma­tion came af­ter fu­tile ef­forts by po­lice in the pre­vi­ous two weeks to get a di­rect au­di­ence to speak with Mc­Don­ald on the tip-off mat­ter.

Mc­Don­ald was ar­rest­ed on Au­gust 7 and charged on Au­gust 10 with sev­en counts of al­leged cor­rup­tion, in­clud­ing al­leged mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and mon­ey laun­der­ing. Four oth­er per­sons were al­so placed on a to­tal of 49 charges.

Since then Mc­Don­ald missed Par­lia­ment sit­tings, in­clud­ing Wednes­day’s launch of the last ses­sion of Par­lia­ment for this term. She has been at­tend­ing to med­ical and oth­er is­sues, a spokesman said Wednes­day.

While Mc­Don­ald hadn’t spo­ken on mat­ters be­yond ini­tial state­ments af­ter the ar­rest, the tip-off is­sue was brought up by her po­lit­i­cal leader on Sep­tem­ber 9 dur­ing de­bate on the Firearms (Amend­ment) Bill. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said he didn’t know Mc­Don­ald was go­ing to get ar­rest­ed, but a month be­fore she was, Per­sad-Bisses­sar “could have called Mc­Don­ald’s of­fice to tell her she would be ar­rest­ed.”

Row­ley re­port­ed­ly said that as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil chair­man he didn’t know that po­lice were “on to” Mc­Don­ald, but Per­sad-Bisses­sar did. He said it took him four days to find out what was hap­pen­ing re­gard­ing his min­is­ter. He re­port­ed­ly ex­pressed “how con­fi­dent” (sic) Per­sad-Bisses­sar was in her con­fir­ma­tion of the tip.

Af­ter Row­ley re­vealed the sit­u­a­tion, Mc­Don­ald con­firmed Per­sad-Bisses­sar had told her—four or five weeks be­fore her ar­rest—that “po­lice were com­ing” for her. She said she’d called At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young on it. Al-Rawi did con­firm she called him on it and al­so on the morn­ing when po­lice came to her house on Au­gust 7.

Mc­Don­ald had sub­se­quent­ly voiced con­cern on the rev­e­la­tion. It was lat­er dis­closed that her at­tor­ney had banned her from mak­ing fur­ther state­ments.

Af­ter that de­vel­op­ment, Al- Rawi, in pre-Par­lia­ment cross-talk, told the Op­po­si­tion—UNC’s David Lee had con­firmed—that Sec­tion 51 of the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act would be a big “prob­lem” for the Op­po­si­tion.

Po­lice of­fi­cials sub­se­quent­ly con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that Sec­tion 51 stip­u­lates that in mon­ey laun­der­ing mat­ters, tip­ping off a per­son whom po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing or are about to, is an of­fence. They said ca­su­al ban­ter wasn’t an is­sue, but a se­ri­ous warn­ing would be and “ques­tions” had to be an­swered ahead.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar nev­er com­ment­ed on the mat­ter di­rect­ly. She, how­ev­er, broke her si­lence on it three weeks ago af­ter Row­ley taunt­ed that she had “pip” (a res­pi­ra­to­ry is­sue af­fect­ing chick­ens’ voice). Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the mat­ter was sub-ju­dice and she wasn’t go­ing to com­ment on “Mar­lenegate.”

How­ev­er, po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions on the mat­ter had pro­ceed­ed. Dur­ing the week of the last sit­ting of the fourth ses­sion of Par­lia­ment (on Sep­tem­ber 20), it was con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that po­lice made sev­er­al at­tempts in that pe­ri­od to con­tact Mc­Don­ald to see if she’d be will­ing to give a state­ment on the mat­ter.

Po­lice went to her St Joseph home but didn’t meet her. They went to the Par­lia­ment, but she was ab­sent from the sit­ting that day. They al­so went to her Port-of-Spain South con­stituen­cy of­fice but were told to con­tact her at­tor­ney Pamela El­der. The lat­ter had told Guardian Me­dia she wasn’t com­ment­ing.

The Guardian con­firmed from of­fi­cials close to Mc­Don­ald that she nev­er gave po­lice a state­ment. That was fur­ther con­firmed by po­lice this week.

Po­lice al­so said Mc­Don­ald nev­er put brought up the tip-off as­pect when she gave state­ments to au­thor­i­ties when she was ques­tioned in Au­gust. “So noth­ing fur­ther can be done,” they added.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Mc­Don­ald said, “My at­tor­ney’s ad­vised that the mat­ter is sub ju­dice. I can’t make any com­ment.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar didn’t re­spond to calls. Per­sad-Bisses­sar will, how­ev­er, be speak­ing in next week’s 2020 Bud­get de­bate.

Mc­Don­ald who did an MRI ex­am­i­na­tion on Wednes­day is ex­pect­ed to be present for Bud­get de­bate. When she was dis­missed in March 2016, she’d spo­ken in the sub­se­quent 2017 Bud­get de­bate, de­fend­ing Gov­ern­ment’s poli­cies. PNM of­fi­cials were un­cer­tain if she’ll be speak­ing in 2020 Bud­get de­bate.