Po­lice have been ad­vised to file fresh crim­i­nal charges against A&V Oil and Gas CEO Hanif Naz­im Baksh—a friend of Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley—and his son-in-law af­ter cas­es against them col­lapsed pre­ma­ture­ly two weeks ago.

Guardian Me­dia has been re­li­ably in­formed that the Of­fice of the DPP had re­quest­ed the po­lice files in­volv­ing the as­sault charges that had been laid against Baksh and Cpl Bil­ly Ram­sun­dar af­ter a com­plaint from Guardian Me­dia se­nior pho­tog­ra­ph­er Kris­t­ian De Sil­va.

The case be­gan two years af­ter the al­leged as­sault of De Sil­va by Baksh. The fresh charges have since been laid and the two men are ex­pect­ed to ap­pear in court on Sep­tem­ber 3.

Cpl Billy Ramsundar

When the mat­ter was last called be­fore Mag­is­trate Mar­garet Alert, she freed Baksh and Ram­sun­dar be­cause the State was not ready to pro­ceed.

The Of­fice of the DPP re­ceived all the po­lice records last Fri­day, sources said.

Af­ter re­view­ing the po­lice files, DPP Roger Gas­pard ad­vised the po­lice to re-lay the charges against the de­fen­dants, Guardian Me­dia was in­formed.

The de­vel­op­ment comes in the wake of pub­lic con­cern af­ter the case end­ed.

On Sat­ur­day, the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion in a state­ment called on Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith and the DPP to pro­vide a thor­ough ex­pla­na­tion for their fail­ure to pros­e­cute the cas­es.

MATT said it was dis­turbed by the rea­sons lead­ing to the dis­missal of the case.

Guardian Media Ltd’s staff photographer Kristian De Silva was taken to seek medical attention following an attack Friday when his equipment was destroyed while photographing A&V Oil and Gas in Penal, the company named in a fake oil scandal at Petrotrin.

RISHI RAGOONATH

“The dis­charg­ing of these men is, at best, a shock­ing ex­am­ple of neg­li­gence by in­sti­tu­tions re­spon­si­ble for crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. At worst, it is a tac­it en­dorse­ment by law en­force­ment of at­tacks on jour­nal­ists and press free­dom, and a sus­pi­cious de­vel­op­ment, giv­en that one of the ac­cused is a wealthy friend of the Prime Min­is­ter and the oth­er a mem­ber of the TTPS,” MATT stat­ed.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion added: “Jour­nal­ists pur­sue news to serve the pub­lic’s right to know. There can be no ar­gu­ment that al­le­ga­tions, where A&V Drilling charged the now-de­funct Petrotrin ap­prox­i­mate­ly $100 mil­lion for oil not sup­plied, was a pub­lic in­ter­est sto­ry de­serv­ing of dogged pur­suit by jour­nal­ists. In this mat­ter, the free press was ful­fill­ing its de­mo­c­ra­t­ic func­tion in ser­vice of the pub­lic in­ter­est. We call on the TTPS and the Of­fice of the DPP to do the same.”

A&V Oil and Gas’ operations in Penal

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

In re­sponse, Grif­fith took um­brage to MATT’s state­ment say­ing that the or­gan­i­sa­tion should have sought to get the facts first be­fore is­su­ing a state­ment.

He said he had al­ready com­menced an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter.

He al­so as­sured that the po­lice would do all that is re­quired to en­sure the safe­ty of jour­nal­ists and he re­mind­ed the pub­lic that they can­not de­bar the me­dia from do­ing their du­ties, es­pe­cial­ly if they are in a pub­lic space.

De Sil­va had said he was un­aware that the mat­ter had been fixed to be­gin and had not been so in­formed by the main po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tor ASP Ruthven Hunte.

Flashback September 2017: Guardian Media’s staff photographer, Kristian De Silva, right, recounts the attack to ASP Hunt when he revisited the scene with investigators in Penal. At left is senior journalist Sascha Wilson who witnessed the attack.

Rishi Ragoonath

Ram­sun­dar, a po­lice of­fi­cer with 25 years’ ser­vice, was charged with as­sault­ing De Sil­va and dam­ag­ing his com­pa­ny-owned Canon DSLR cam­era val­ued at US$1,600.

Baksh, who is the fa­ther of for­mer PNM Sen­a­tor Allyson Baksh, was charged with as­sault­ing the pho­tog­ra­ph­er and ma­li­cious­ly dam­ag­ing De Sil­va’s eye­glass­es val­ued at $2,400.

Baksh al­so faced an ad­di­tion­al charge of us­ing threats to in­flu­ence Khu­sial Moti­ram to give false ev­i­dence and with­hold true ev­i­dence, know­ing or rea­son­ably be­liev­ing he was a po­ten­tial wit­ness in a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the as­sault of De Sil­va and the ma­li­cious dam­age of prop­er­ty be­long­ing to De Sil­va.

On Sep­tem­ber 15, 2017, De Sil­va was stand­ing out­side A&V’s com­pound along Naz­im Av­enue, Pe­nal, gath­er­ing pho­tos for cov­er­age of the “Fake Oil” scan­dal be­tween the com­pa­ny and Petrotrin, when he was al­leged­ly as­sault­ed by Baksh. He sus­tained a bust­ed lip, bruised face and his cam­era was dam­aged.

Af­ter the me­dia broke news about the al­le­ga­tions against A&V Oil in Sep­tem­ber 2017, the Prime Min­is­ter said he had called, Baksh, whom he ac­knowl­edged is his friend, to find out what the re­port was all about. He said then if a per­son was his friend he would not “de­ny or dis­own” the per­son on the grounds that an al­le­ga­tion has been made against them.

In May, Row­ley said in Par­lia­ment it was up to the DPP to de­cide whether or not crim­i­nal charges will flow from the in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to A&V claims for pay­ment from Petrotrin.