Gov­ern­ment MP Kei­th Scot­land had filed the civ­il mat­ters in Feb­ru­ary on be­half of King’s Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son against for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, ac­cord­ing to Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­vealed this at the par­ty’s Mon­day Night Fo­rum, where she read a let­ter pur­port­ed to have been from Nel­son to Scot­land.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her team dou­bled down on “Nel­songate” the cri­sis en­mesh­ing the Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion, stem­ming from Nel­son’s in­dem­ni­ty claim against Gov­ern­ment. This fol­lows the dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of cor­rup­tion charges against for­mer UNC AG Anand Ram­lo­gan and sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared, “You can’t lie your way out of this mess now Row­ley! Win­ter is com­ing for you po­lit­i­cal­ly. The PNM got a taste of kar­ma—don’t dig no hole for any­one with your lies.

“The in­for­ma­tion re­vealed points to a con­spir­a­cy on the part of high-rank­ing PNM of­fi­cials ...they can’t sub­sidise the fu­el sub­sidy and they’re re­duc­ing food cards but they have mil­lions to pay Nel­son! We must make our col­lec­tive voic­es heard—this is the time to fight!”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said ear­li­er this year, Nel­son’s mat­ter, which was filed against then-At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, was filed by a PNM MP.

“The Coal pot man him­self—I think he should jump on a bi­cy­cle and ride to the near­est po­lice sta­tion,” she said, ref­er­enc­ing state­ments Scot­land made in the 2023 Bud­get de­bate urg­ing peo­ple to use coal pots and bi­cy­cles if they could not af­ford bet­ter at the mo­ment.

“So, Mr Kei­th Scot­land filed that claim on be­half of Nel­son in or about Feb­ru­ary.”

But she added that Nel­son “smelled a rat” and lat­er sent a May 26, 2022 email to Scot­land on the sub­ject of a re­tain­er in the is­sue of “Nel­son ver­sus the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.”

She read the email: “Dear Kei­th, as you are aware from our many con­ver­sa­tions, I have some con­cerns re­gard­ing the con­flict of in­ter­est you may have in this mat­ter. This con­cern has grown con­sid­er­ably in the last few weeks, I there­fore de­cid­ed that it is in my best in­ter­ests and peace of mind to ter­mi­nate the re­tain­er with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.”

Nel­son added that he was in the process of ap­point­ing al­ter­na­tive lawyers who would con­tact Scot­land.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “So the per­son who filed against Faris was ‘Coal pot Kei­th’—a PNM sit­ting MP, an­oth­er one who knew. Then Nel­son fired them, but since Feb­ru­ary, Scot­land is sit­ting on this mat­ter...there are oth­er lawyers in the mat­ter now.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar spec­u­lat­ed on why Scot­land filed the mat­ter.

“Mr Scot­land—was this an­oth­er con­spir­a­cy for you all to put pres­sure on the Fi­nance Min­is­ter to re­lease monies to pay this man?”

She said Gov­ern­ment’s hubris in the is­sue could well lead to charges of mis­be­hav­iour in of­fice, ob­struct­ing the course of jus­tice and oth­ers.

UNC MP Sad­dam Ho­sein said, “Faris HYMC! Look, How You Mash Up The Case!”

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Scot­land said he had no com­ment to make on the mat­ter at this time.

Mean­while, UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal al­leged doc­u­ment re­ceived via the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion (FOI) Act showed the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion in 2021 got notes which the then-Com­mis­sion chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad act­ed on. “The Cab­i­net was urg­ing the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to send then-Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave based on le­gal ad­vice and pend­ing probe by Jus­tice Stan­ley John,” he said.

But he claimed Seep­er­sad said John’s re­port wasn’t a dis­ci­pli­nary one and the com­mis­sion shouldn’t be act­ing on that re­quest.

Mooni­lal al­leged an­oth­er FOI in­di­cat­ed the com­mis­sion re­ceived a se­cret re­port and em­pha­sised it was done by two men. But he claimed on­ly one signed.

Mooni­lal claimed the PolSC asked the PM why he took so long to pro­duce it and in its Sep­tem­ber 2021 min­utes, in­di­cat­ed its “dis­gust with the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil chair­man” for the late Sep­tem­ber 2021 sub­mis­sion.