Richard Lord

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er James Philbert yes­ter­day trad­ed an­gry words as is­sues over the con­tro­ver­sial church at Gua­napo took a dra­mat­ic new turn. Ram­lo­gan first slammed Philbert, ac­cus­ing him of de­clin­ing to act on loot­ing and oth­er acts of law­less­ness at the Light­house of the Lord Je­sus Christ. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al al­so hint­ed that Philbert, whose con­tract has been ex­tend­ed four times, could be sacked over the is­sue. His lat­est three-month ex­ten­sion will ex­pire Sep­tem­ber 30. He said Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Brigadier John Sandy must now "call in his Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and deal with him firm­ly." But last night, Philbert fired back, say­ing he has been con­duct­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions on the is­sue and has been li­ais­ing with Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard.

The act­ing top cop al­so said he was un­aware that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al "can ap­point, short­en, dis­con­tin­ue or in­flu­ence the tenure of ser­vice of a po­lice of­fi­cer or the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice." He al­so point­ed to the in­de­pen­dence his of­fice en­joys. At yes­ter­day's mid-af­ter­noon post-Cab­i­net press con­fer­ence, Ram­lo­gan de­mand­ed why Philbert did not act when he was con­tact­ed on the is­sue by DPP Gas­pard. A tough-talk­ing Ram­lo­gan asked what Philbert planned to do about loot­ing at the church. Ram­lo­gan and Sandy were sched­uled to meet yes­ter­day to dis­cuss the is­sue. The AG said he would urge Sandy "to ad­vise the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to take im­me­di­ate steps to pro­tect the site...and with re­spect to those per­sons who were loot­ing, un­less they can show proof of own­er­ship, they bet­ter start build­ing back that struc­ture fast." Ram­lo­gan said: "If the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er doesn't have good ex­pla­na­tion and an­swers as to why he failed to act, it would then be a mat­ter for the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (which ap­points and dis­ci­plines of­fi­cers).

"And there will be a new Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion in place to de­cide what to do about that," he said. He ar­gued: "But it sim­ply can­not be right, when we are fac­ing a ter­ri­fy­ing tsuna­mi of crime, that this could be al­lowed to take place and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice not have good an­swers as to why he didn't in­ter­vene.' Ram­lo­gan de­clared: "We are mad, up­set and vexed, as is the pop­u­la­tion, and we would join with the pop­u­la­tion in de­mand­ing an­swers." He said Philbert must be held ac­count­able for his ac­tion or "in­ac­tion." Ram­lo­gan said if Philbert's ex­pla­na­tion was not a good one, his act­ing ap­point­ment could come "to an ac­cel­er­at­ed and pre­ma­ture end." But last night, Philbert de­liv­ered a com­pre­hen­sive re­sponse. He said the Po­lice Ser­vice was un­able to es­tab­lish "true own­er­ship of the prop­er­ty." He added: "This must be es­tab­lished in or­der to ad­dress the is­sue (of) lar­ce­ny or any like of­fence.

"That be­ing so, the in­ter­est was not triv­i­alised." Philbert said in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­port­ed that Shang­hai had de­cid­ed to dis­con­tin­ue con­struc­tion and re­move equip­ment and ma­te­r­i­al from the prop­er­ty be­cause they were owed mon­ey. He said: "What­ev­er ad­vice the DPP gave to the Com­mis­sion­er was heed­ed..." In fact, he said both him and Gas­pard shared "the same con­cerns re­lat­ing to es­tab­lish­ing a pres­ence or con­trol at the prop­er­ty." Philbert stressed that the po­lice probe was seek­ing to find out the source of funds. He said the prop­er­ty had been aban­doned, and, as a re­sult, "the whole ques­tion of loot­ing or any form of lar­ce­ny can­not arise." He ac­cused Ram­lo­gan of ex­hibit­ing "con­tempt, dis­dain, bias and an­i­mos­i­ty for the of­fice of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice." Philbert said Ram­lo­gan has come to "a hasty con­clu­sion" with­out con­sult­ing him.

With re­spect to his ad­di­tion­al term of of­fice Philbert, who has been an of­fi­cer for 43 years, said he was asked by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion "to stay on" un­til a new com­mis­sion­er is ap­point­ed. He said he has en­joyed in­de­pen­dence in of­fice and in his per­son­al life. "The threat made by the AG seems not to be rest­ing on the is­sue at hand," said Philbert. He said he "con­sid­ers this to be a dan­ger­ous prac­tice, if it is so." He said he has al­ways shown re­spect for the of­fice of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al "and reci­procity is im­por­tant in this re­gard." Philbert said: "The im­por­tance and in­de­pen­dence of the of­fice of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al can­not be over­stat­ed and all is­sues that are un­der the pre­view of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al should be dealt with in a fair and un­bi­ased man­ner."

In his ear­li­er state­ment, Ram­lo­gan had said that both the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the Po­lice Ser­vice were em­pow­ered un­der law to act in the mat­ter. The AG said Philbert was "alert­ed" about the loot­ing at the church and his in­ter­ven­tion was sought via the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP). Ram­lo­gan said Philbert's fail­ure or re­fusal to act was a ques­tion that "on­ly the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice him­self and God could an­swer." He said he would ex­plore a le­gal op­tion on the state's be­half about the prop­er­ty.