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Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Row­ley on ex-so­lic­i­tor gen­er­al's al­le­ga­tions:

AG must stand aside

by

20140429

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley is de­mand­ing the re­moval of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan from of­fice while Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ini­ti­ates a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­le­ga­tions of wrong-do­ing by lawyers in­volved in prison lit­i­ga­tion in his min­istry.Row­ley made the call dur­ing a Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) lead­er­ship cam­paign meet­ing at Sig­na­ture Hall, Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas, on Mon­day night.

He said if the PM did not ac­cede to the re­quest he would lead cit­i­zens on the streets in protest.He told sup­port­ers: "We want a thor­ough in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion of these al­le­ga­tions of crim­i­nal con­duct orig­i­nat­ing in the of­fice of the AG. The AG Anand Ram­lo­gan must be re­moved from the of­fice in the process while the in­ves­ti­ga­tion pro­ceeds.

"We are mak­ing this as a de­mand in pro­tec­tion of our rights un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion. If the PM does not ac­cede to these two re­quests, I am putting you on stand­by that I would lead the peo­ple of T&T on­to the streets of T&T be­cause this Gov­ern­ment does not own us. They work for us."Row­ley was re­fer­ring to the now on­go­ing saga be­tween Ram­lo­gan and for­mer so­lic­i­tor gen­er­al (SG) Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well.

Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well, in a let­ter to the PM last Au­gust, had ac­cused at­tor­neys in the Of­fice of the AG of col­lu­sion in prison lit­i­ga­tion mat­ters and called for a probe.She claimed there were con­cerns about a breach of pro­fes­sion­al ethics for in­di­rect or di­rect fi­nan­cial gain, adding she was con­cerned the at­tor­neys were en­gaged in an un­eth­i­cal busi­ness ven­ture.

Af­ter the AG pro­duced a sec­ond let­ter to the me­dia over the week­end, which seemed to sug­gest Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well had with­drawn her re­quest af­ter be­ing sat­is­fied the mat­ter had been dealt with fol­low­ing a probe by the AG, Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well coun­tered that she nev­er did that and ex­pect­ed the probe to con­tin­ue.

Du­ty to na­tion

Dur­ing his meet­ing, Row­ley, who is be­ing chal­lenged for the lead­er­ship po­si­tion in the May 18 in­ter­nal elec­tion by Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son, said the mat­ter was a very se­ri­ous one and the PM had a du­ty to the na­tion to have it in­ves­ti­gat­ed and de­ter­mined."Peo­ple of T&T, I want you to un­der­stand that the SG is a sub­or­di­nate of the AG," Row­ley said.

"In sim­ple lan­guage, he is her boss. But the mat­ter was so se­ri­ous that this of­fi­cer, a pub­lic ser­vant, see­ing what is be­fore her by way of com­plaints from the pris­ons, wrote a let­ter to the PM," he added.

He said Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well put every­thing on the line by by­pass­ing the AG to write to the PM, "that this mat­ter ex­ists where the ju­di­cia­ry, the pris­ons and the ex­ec­u­tive, that tri­umvi­rate, is op­er­at­ing in a way where there could be crim­i­nal con­duct tak­ing place, in­volv­ing per­sons who have been con­vict­ed of crimes, who are al­ready in jail and who are si­phon­ing out pub­lic mon­ey through an un­eth­i­cal busi­ness prac­tice.

"In oth­er words, there are peo­ple in the sys­tem, in the gov­ern­ment, in the AG's of­fice col­lud­ing with lawyers to run a busi­ness us­ing the jail and the AG's of­fice."That's why tonight I am call­ing on the PM of T&T to im­me­di­ate­ly in­sti­tute the ap­pro­pri­ate en­quiry in­to this mat­ter and that the AG not be any­where near the bor­ders of it," he said.

...and gives Ram­lo­gana 24-hour ul­ti­ma­tum

Leader of the Op­po­si­tion Dr Kei­th Row­ley on Mon­day gave a 24-hour ul­ti­ma­tum to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan to make pub­lic the re­port he did in­to al­le­ga­tions of col­lu­sion be­tween the Prison Ser­vices and the Ju­di­cia­ry.He al­so is­sued a fresh call to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­move Ram­lo­gan while an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion is done in­to the al­le­ga­tions.

Row­ley made the de­mands dur­ing a pub­lic meet­ing in Lon­denville, Ch­agua­nas, on Mon­day, in sup­port of his cam­paign for the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion on May 18.For­mer so­lic­i­tor gen­er­al Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well re­signed last year, months af­ter she wrote a let­ter to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar about al­leged col­lu­sion in prison lit­i­ga­tion mat­ters.Ram­lo­gan said he in­ves­ti­gat­ed her com­plaint and found the al­le­ga­tions to have no ba­sis.

But Row­ley said Ram­lo­gan still had ques­tions to an­swer."Tonight, I ask the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al where, when, how and by whom did this full in­ves­ti­ga­tion take place with re­spect to the al­leged crim­i­nal con­duct be­tween your of­fice, the pris­ons and the Ju­di­cia­ry on this mat­ter?" hew asked.He then called on Ram­lo­gan to "make the re­port of that full in­ves­ti­ga­tion pub­lic by to­mor­row (yes­ter­day) evening."

He told the PNM sup­port­ers: "This is the place where we draw a line on the ground. We draw a line on the ground in T&T, in Ca­roni (Ch­agua­nas) tonight."And in the wake of the "on­slaught" by Ram­lo­gan on Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty di­rec­tor Gillian Lucky over an al­leged leak of its re­port on the New Fly­ing Squad, Row­ley called on all pub­lic of­fi­cials to speak out on gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion. He said they could do that know­ing they had the sup­port of the Op­po­si­tion.

With a gen­er­al elec­tion due next year, Row­ley said those who spoke out and were vic­timised by the PP Gov­ern­ment would be safe if the PNM were to as­sume pow­er then."We give the as­sur­ance to every pub­lic of­fi­cial or any per­son in the pri­vate sec­tor who knows of gov­ern­ment wrong-do­ing, that if you speak up in de­fence of T&T, the (next) PNM gov­ern­ment will en­sure we re­verse every act of dis­crim­i­na­tion or vic­tim­i­sa­tion against you. This joke has gone too far," he added.

Richard Lord


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