Richard Lord

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan is call­ing on act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams to con­duct a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the leak of re­ports by the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) on the New Fly­ing Squad In­ves­tiga­tive Unit.Ram­lo­gan made the call in a let­ter to Williams yes­ter­day, hours af­ter PCA di­rec­tor Gillian Lucky told a par­lia­men­tary Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee hear­ing, which was in ses­sion at Tow­er D, Wa­ter­front Com­plex, Port-of-Spain, that the re­port was not a con­fi­den­tial doc­u­ment as claimed by Ram­lo­gan.

It was Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi who first told the Sen­ate about the re­port two weeks ago. He said then that he had two re­ports - one from the PCA and the oth­er T&T Po­lice Ser­vice -, which rec­om­mend­ed that the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) pur­sue crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to po­lice of­fi­cers for their role in the squad.The squad was re-es­tab­lished in 2012.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day in­di­cat­ing that he had sent the let­ter to Williams, Ram­lo­gan said the "be­lat­ed ad­mis­sion by Ms Lucky that the re­port is not con­fi­den­tial is trou­bling." He in­sist­ed that sec­tion 21 (4) of the PCA Act states that all in­for­ma­tion and ev­i­dence ob­tained by the PCA in the per­for­mance of its du­ties is con­fi­den­tial and it is a crim­i­nal of­fence for any­one to dis­close such in­for­ma­tion, an act which is pun­ish­able by five years im­pris­on­ment.

"If the re­port is not a con­fi­den­tial one that could be leaked to the PNM, why not sim­ply give the par­lia­ment, the gov­ern­ment and the me­dia a copy," Ram­lo­gan not­ed.The AG main­tained that it was "shock­ing and con­fus­ing" for Lucky to say the doc­u­ment was not con­fi­den­tial.

"The con­flict­ing and con­tra­dic­to­ry pos­tures from Al-Rawi and Lucky serve to re­in­force the need for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by se­nior of­fi­cers in the Po­lice Ser­vice (and) it is al­so a mat­ter the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion should in­ves­ti­gate," Ram­lo­gan con­tend­ed in the re­lease.As such, he said he wrote to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice re­quest­ing "a for­mal po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to this leak which has the po­ten­tial to com­pro­mise the in­tegri­ty and in­de­pen­dence of crit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tions of the State."

Ram­lo­gan al­so again main­tained that the re­port was leaked to Al-Rawi.Both Al-Rawi and Lucky have de­nied Ram­lo­gan's claim.Ram­lo­gan said Lucky's sug­ges­tion that Al-Rawi's state­ments in Par­lia­ment could be a ref­er­ence to the re­port from the Po­lice Ser­vice alone was un­for­tu­nate, adding that her com­ment "was not clar­i­fied or cor­rect­ed by him (Al-Rawi) who was present at the meet­ing."He per­pet­u­at­ed this false im­pres­sion by his si­lence."

He sug­gest­ed it was"strange that any­one would want to give the pub­lic the im­pres­sion that Sen­a­tor Al-Rawi had ac­cess to the po­lice re­port alone. That is mis­lead­ing and in­ac­cu­rate. Sen­a­tor Al-Rawi has re­peat­ed­ly pub­licly con­firmed that both re­ports were in fact leaked to him."