Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has slammed state­ments made by for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith which he says can un­der­mine sev­er­al high-pro­file crim­i­nal mat­ters.

The Prime Min­is­ter, while speak­ing at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s San Fer­nan­do West 51st Con­stituen­cy con­fer­ence, said re­cent com­ments by the for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er could in­flu­ence cas­es such as Life­s­port, Es­tate Man­age­ment and De­vel­op­ment Co Ltd and the Vin­cent Nel­son mat­ter.

“He is giv­ing a de­fence and an ar­gu­ment in the court by the de­fence lawyers for all these peo­ple, that the pros­e­cu­tion by the Trinidad and To­ba­go po­lice is po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed,” said Row­ley.

“When they pub­lish it abroad (it) is the Prime Min­is­ter of the coun­try who give the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice mon­ey to go af­ter these poor in­no­cent peo­ple,” he added.

Unit­ed King­dom firm Ed­monds Mar­shall Ma­hon had been con­tract­ed by the TTPS to pro­vide sup­port and train­ing to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tion Bu­reau (ACIB) as they in­ves­ti­gat­ed those mat­ters. Grif­fith had been the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice while the firm pro­vid­ed that aid.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the re­quest for fund­ing for these cas­es would have been made by the TTPS to the Gov­ern­ment.

The Prime Min­is­ter said he had lit­tle con­nec­tion to these in­ves­ti­ga­tions be­ing prompt­ed.

“I am mak­ing this very clear that as Prime Min­is­ter of this coun­try, I have had ab­solute­ly no per­son­al in­struc­tion or in­volve­ment in this mat­ter. This is a mat­ter be­tween the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and the Cab­i­net where the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance re­sides.

“There­fore on Mon­day morn­ing, I’m pass­ing all these doc­u­ments in­clud­ing the one signed by the said com­mis­sion­er of po­lice and the Cab­i­net notes to my lawyer,” said the Prime Min­is­ter.

Dur­ing the con­fer­ence, Row­ley once again de­fend­ed his de­ci­sion to meet with In­di­an busi­ness­man Naveen Jin­dal, which came about af­ter dis­cus­sions about the po­ten­tial in­vest­ment by In­di­an busi­ness­men in the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery. Jin­dal paid a cour­tesy call to the Prime Min­is­ter af­ter fly­ing across from Venezuela last month.

“I got a call say­ing that since he was there and wouldn’t be able to trav­el with my del­e­ga­tion from In­dia he is next door in Venezuela. Could he pass through Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause they are all com­ing to see what are their op­por­tu­ni­ties here, for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment. Di­rect in­vest­ment from for­eign­ers that’s what we are look­ing for,” said the Prime Min­is­ter.

The Op­po­si­tion, how­ev­er, raised con­cern that Jin­dal had been fac­ing charges in In­dia and as a re­sult, ques­tioned the de­ci­sion made by Gov­ern­ment to meet with the busi­ness­man.

The Prime Min­is­ter said that based on the log­ic pre­sent­ed by the Op­po­si­tion, Caribbean Air­lines should cease the use of Boe­ing air­craft due to the com­pa­ny plead­ing guilty to fraud charges and be­ing fined in re­la­tion to 737 Max crash­es.