The Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion (MATT) is call­ing on Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith and Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard to pro­vide a thor­ough ex­pla­na­tion for their fail­ure to pros­e­cute A&V Oil and Gas CEO Hanif Naz­im Baksh and his son-in-law Cpl Bil­ly Ram­sun­dar for an as­sault on Guardian Me­dia se­nior pho­tog­ra­ph­er Kris­t­ian De Sil­va.

In a me­dia re­lease Sat­ur­day, MATT’s ex­ec­u­tive said de­spite two strong­ly-word­ed news­pa­per ed­i­to­ri­als, ra­dio com­men­taries, cor­re­spon­dence from MATT to the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) and calls from civ­il so­ci­ety, there has been no ex­pla­na­tion forth­com­ing from the TTPS or the DPP for the non-ap­pear­ances of their rep­re­sen­ta­tives in court, which ul­ti­mate­ly led to the dis­missal of the case by the pre­sid­ing mag­is­trate.

In a fol­low-up tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion with the PSB on Ju­ly 24, MATT said it was told that the mat­ter was un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

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.

On No­vem­ber 10, 2017, Baksh and Ram­sun­dar ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Ava Van­den­burg-Bai­ley in the Siparia Mag­is­trates’ Court charged in the mat­ter. Ram­sun­dar, a po­lice of­fi­cer with 25 years’ ser­vice, was charged with as­sault­ing De Sil­va and oc­ca­sion­ing ac­tu­al bod­i­ly harm and dam­ag­ing his Canon DSLR cam­era val­ued at US$1,600. Baksh, who is the fa­ther of for­mer PNM Sen­a­tor Allyson Baksh, was charged with as­sault oc­ca­sion­ing ac­tu­al bod­i­ly harm and un­law­ful­ly and ma­li­cious­ly dam­ag­ing De Sil­va’s eye­glass­es val­ued at $2,400.

On March 12, Baksh was again tak­en to court, this time for know­ing­ly or rea­son­ably be­liev­ing Khu­sial Moti­ram was a po­ten­tial wit­ness in a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the as­sault of De Sil­va and the ma­li­cious dam­age of prop­er­ty be­long­ing to De Sil­va, for which Baksh was a sus­pect, us­ing threats to in­flu­ence Moti­ram to give false ev­i­dence and with­hold true ev­i­dence. Baksh was rep­re­sent­ed by Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC and Michael Rooplal. Ram­sun­dar was rep­re­sent­ed by Alvin Ram­roop.

Dur­ing the course of the case, the State kept re­quest­ing ad­journ­ments from the court. This wore the de­fence’s pa­tience and on Jan­u­ary 28 when the pros­e­cu­tion again asked for an­oth­er ad­journ­ment, the de­fence team ob­ject­ed and called for the mat­ters to be dis­missed. In­stead, the court grant­ed the pros­e­cu­tion six months to get its af­fairs in or­der and set the tri­al for Ju­ly 15. But when the mat­ter was called on that date, the pros­e­cu­tion sought an­oth­er ad­journ­ment.

Ma­haraj again ob­ject­ed, say­ing that the pros­e­cu­tion had more than suf­fi­cient time to be ready and that it was mak­ing a mock­ery of the court’s or­ders. He said Baksh and Ram­sun­dar had at­tend­ed court on each oc­ca­sion over the last two years. Se­nior Mag­is­trate Mar­garet Alert said there were no good rea­sons ad­vanced by the pros­e­cu­tion to get a fur­ther ad­journ­ment to pro­ceed with the tri­al and dis­missed the charges.

Fol­low­ing the dis­missal, how­ev­er, De Sil­va said he was told by the po­lice that when the tri­al start­ed he would have been in­formed of when he would be need­ed to ap­pear in court. He said that three weeks pri­or to the case’s dis­missal, he spoke to in­ves­ti­ga­tors who re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion about the cost of his lens. He said he was of the be­lief that the case was con­tin­u­ing as usu­al and was stunned when he read of the case’s dis­missal.

MATT said it was dis­turbed at the rea­sons which led to the dis­missal of the case.

“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 

Go­ing fur­ther, MATT said, “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.”