SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Some MPs, in­clud­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, may po­ten­tial­ly find them­selves giv­ing ev­i­dence in court in pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries linked to Life Sport and Pris­ongate.

This was re­vealed yes­ter­day by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi dur­ing de­bate of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings) Bill which he pi­lot­ed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Dur­ing the de­bate, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said it was in­ter­est­ing that Al-Rawi had hasti­ly brought leg­is­la­tion to the Low­er House to elim­i­nate pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries by Jan­u­ary 15 next year and ex­pe­dite tri­als. He won­dered why it was not done at a lat­er date since Par­lia­ment is ex­pect­ed to move back to the Red House next month.

Mooni­lal asked the AG if he was a wit­ness in a pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry to which Al-Rawi re­spond­ed that “both pri­or to be­com­ing AG and now” he had made re­ports to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

“It is, there­fore rea­son­able to as­sume that they may call up­on me, as they may very well call up­on the Mem­ber for Siparia in par­tic­u­lar, the Mem­ber for St Au­gus­tine in par­tic­u­lar, who just spoke, and sev­er­al oth­er mem­bers of this Par­lia­ment,” he said.

Al-Rawi said he was aware of “mat­ters in­volv­ing Life­s­port . . . every­body op­po­site . . . Pris­ongate and a num­ber of oth­er mat­ters.”

He told the Low­er House: “So I can say quite con­fi­dent­ly that many peo­ple in this Par­lia­ment here may po­ten­tial­ly find them­selves giv­ing ev­i­dence.”

Mooni­lal com­ment­ed that it was use­ful for Al-Rawi to go on pub­lic record with such in­for­ma­tion.

“This may af­fect his own state­ments and his own con­duct in pro­ceed­ings that may be be­fore the crim­i­nal court,” the Op­po­si­tion MP point­ed out.

Mooni­lal said he was hap­py that the AG in­formed that House that oth­er mem­bers may al­so be in­volved but “in­ad­ver­tent­ly, did not dis­close that you may be a wit­ness in a mat­ter.”

Al-Rawi shout­ed across the floor: “No! No! No!”

“It was in­ad­ver­tent and it would not have been de­lib­er­ate . . . and it cer­tain­ly would not have been ma­li­cious,” said Mooni­lal, who gave the AG a few sec­onds to ex­plain him­self.

“I am not in a ben­e­fi­cia­ry po­si­tion in re­spect of any mat­ter and there­fore I am in no con­flict of in­ter­est for the record,” the AG in­sist­ed, stat­ing that Mooni­lal’s ques­tion was spec­u­la­tive.

“For the record, I have noth­ing to de­clare. There is no con­flict of in­ter­est,” he said

Mooni­lal al­so trained his guns on Laven­tille West MP Fitzger­ald Hinds point­ing out that he has a mat­ter in the Mag­is­trate’s Court. Hinds re­spond­ed that he was a vic­tim.

“You will have to say when you go to the Mag­is­trate’s Court where you took two of your con­stituents to court whether or not if this will af­fect you in any way,” Mooni­lal fired back.

He added that Hinds failed to vis­it the court “on four oc­ca­sions telling them he had Cab­i­net.”