Gail Alexan­der

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has called on re­tired Rear Ad­mi­ral Hay­den Pritchard to give de­tails of the role he al­leged­ly played in a probe of po­lice of­fi­cers.

Pritchard, in re­turn, has rec­om­mend­ed Mooni­lal take his queries to his Par­lia­men­tary col­leagues in the Gov­ern­ment.

The war of words con­tin­ued af­ter Mooni­lal brought up Pritchard on Mon­day, say­ing the hir­ing of two pri­vate cit­i­zens to in­ves­ti­gate the con­duct of po­lice of­fi­cers in 2020 was un­law­ful.

On Tues­day, how­ev­er, Pritchard fired back in a blis­ter­ing let­ter to Mooni­lal cov­er­ing var­i­ous points.

Yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal re­spond­ed to the let­ter sent to his pri­vate email.

“My apolo­gies for not recog­nis­ing ini­tial­ly his Rear Ad­mi­ral­ty, as in­deed the Rear Ad­mi­ral was not aware that I go by the ti­tle ‘Dr’, which is not con­ferred via a po­lit­i­cal process. It’s nei­ther my in­ten­tion to trade in­vec­tive and in­sults, for which I’m al­so well equipped. There’s no need to ex­change re­sumes or give char­ac­ter ev­i­dence. This mat­ter is a very se­ri­ous one in­volv­ing the un­law­ful es­tab­lish­ment of a se­cret two-man squad to in­ves­ti­gate the work­ings of a unit with­in the struc­ture of the in­de­pen­dent T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.’’

Say­ing he felt Pritchard protest­ed too much, Mooni­lal added, “The in­quir­ers of a se­cret probe, out­side of pub­lic knowl­edge, go­ing on for months, have been ex­posed in twen­ty-four hours. In­deed, the Rear Ad­mi­ral, like NGC’s di­rec­tors, may con­sid­er re­quest­ing an in­dem­ni­ty from Kei­th Row­ley for what­ev­er task was un­der­tak­en.”

Mooni­lal said now that Pritchard “has been drawn out in the light and be­lat­ed­ly stepped for­ward on the se­cret in­ves­ti­ga­tion” in­to TTPS of­fi­cers, he should pro­vide per­ti­nent de­tails to tax­pay­ers.

“Mr Pritchard must tell the na­tion the terms of en­gage­ment, in­clud­ing his re­mu­ner­a­tion, for the clan­des­tine project. For some­one tout­ing his proud mil­i­tary back­ground, he should in­di­cate un­der what law he was re­tained for the ex­er­cise of re­view­ing con­fi­den­tial po­lice files and in­ter­view­ing of­fi­cers.

“The two-man in­ves­ti­gat­ing com­mit­tee had no le­gal sta­tus to un­der­take any in­quiry. The po­lice would have been with­in their right to chase both gen­tle­men out of Po­lice Head­quar­ters. The Rear Ad­mi­ral must in­di­cate who re­tained him for the stealth project. Was it the Prime Min­is­ter or Min­is­ter Stu­art Young? And whether he felt it was ap­pro­pri­ate to be ap­point­ed by a politi­cian for such an as­sign­ment.”

Mooni­lal added, “He should state whether he, as Chief of De­fence Staff, would have been com­fort­able with a sur­rep­ti­tious probe in­to his stew­ard­ship, and one con­duct­ed out­side of the in­de­pen­dent ad­min­is­tra­tive and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work.”

“The much deep­er is­sue, un­re­lat­ed to the Rear Ad­mi­ral and his medals,” Mooni­lal al­leged, “Is that Row­ley has on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions abused the po­si­tion of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil chair­man. This is a pol­i­cy-mak­ing Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee, not an op­er­a­tional arm of law en­force­ment. The Prime Min­is­ter brought po­lice of­fi­cers from Bar­ba­dos to in­ves­ti­gate the DSS mat­ter, he had no au­thor­i­ty to do so. The Prime Min­is­ter can­not in­ves­ti­gate the Po­lice Ser­vice. He may re­fer a mat­ter to the DPP or the PCA if he has in­for­ma­tion that crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing has been un­der­tak­en. They can prop­er­ly cause an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

He added, “It’s a trav­es­ty this Gov­ern­ment will ex­pend con­sid­er­able re­sources, time and en­er­gy to find out how firearms got in­to the hands of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens but will not in­quire how thou­sands of guns get in­to the hands of crim­i­nal el­e­ments.”

He told Pritchard, “My work isn’t a pop­u­lar­i­ty con­test. As an Op­po­si­tion mem­ber, I take on pow­er­ful min­is­ters and a rag­ing Prime Min­is­ter every day of my pro­fes­sion­al life, I will not be in­tim­i­dat­ed by a re­tired sailor!’’

Con­tact­ed on Mooni­lal’s state­ment, Pritchard first con­veyed apolo­gies for not us­ing Mooni­lal’s ti­tle of “Dr” in his re­sponse to him on Tues­day. He said this was not in­ten­tion­al.

How­ev­er, he rec­om­mend­ed that Mooni­lal for­ward all in­quiries on mat­ters of the probe to Mooni­lal’s “ap­pro­pri­ate Par­lia­men­tary col­leagues who are in the Gov­ern­ment.”

“There will be no fur­ther com­ment from me on these mat­ters,” Pritchard added.