JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, March 16, 2025

Moonilal labels SSA case a ‘hoax’ after charges against 3 suspects dropped

by

16 days ago
20250228
Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal has called for the “re­al rea­son” why charges were re­cent­ly dropped against three Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) em­ploy­ees, af­ter not­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had placed “so much so-called ev­i­dence in the pub­lic space un­der par­lia­men­tary cov­er.”

In a rul­ing on Tues­day, Mas­ter Kim­i­tra Gray dropped the charges against con­fessed spy Pas­tor Ian Brown, for­mer se­cu­ri­ty ad­vi­sor Suzanne Por­tel-Grif­fith and po­lice­man Sher­win Wal­dron, who were charged last May for mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice in con­nec­tion with the al­leged trans­fer of four pro­hib­it­ed firearms be­long­ing to the TTPS to the SSA.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal la­belled the case “a hoax” and claimed that the drop­ping of charges against the three SSA of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing a po­lice­man, “con­firms that the in­ten­tion of the Row­ley-led at­tack on the SSA was po­lit­i­cal and de­signed to re­move the lead­er­ship of the SSA.”

Mooni­lal al­leged that the charges were laid af­ter a team of pro­fes­sion­als stuck to their du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties “and de­clined to do the PNM’s dirty work.”

He opined, “The pros­e­cu­tion was un­able to prove the charges and did not com­ply with the di­rec­tives of the court, re­sult­ing in the charges be­ing dis­missed ... This scan­dalous mat­ter is an­oth­er ex­am­ple of the PNM Gov­ern­ment’s bla­tant abuse of pow­er and ma­nip­u­la­tion of the process for its po­lit­i­cal ben­e­fit ...”

Mooni­lal ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley of “abus­ing” par­lia­men­tary im­mu­ni­ty to de­liv­er what he claimed was an “un­jus­ti­fied and in­flam­ma­to­ry ad­dress al­leg­ing that cer­tain SSA of­fi­cers were in­volved in a coup plot against his ad­min­is­tra­tion. Not one sin­gle per­son has been ar­rest­ed or charged for any of­fence re­lat­ing to any at­tempt to over­throw the Gov­ern­ment,” he said.

He fur­ther the­o­rised, “The in­abil­i­ty to sus­tain charges against the of­fi­cers val­i­dates the po­si­tion that Row­ley was en­gaged in a flight of fan­cy, with an imag­i­na­tive con­coc­tion of a threat to his Gov­ern­ment. This hoax was akin to the Email­gate scan­dal of Row­ley a decade ago.”


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored