KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Al­though ad­mit­ting that Port-of-Spain South MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald in­quired whether he knew of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to her, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi de­nies mak­ing any queries to the po­lice.

Al-Rawi said a few months be­fore Mc­Don­ald was ar­rest­ed in a cor­rup­tion in­ves­ti­ga­tion last month, she ap­proached him in the Par­lia­ment.

Speak­ing to re­porters at Skin­ner Park yes­ter­day, he said Mc­Don­ald told him as a mat­ter of fact that Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had in­formed the MP about her im­pend­ing ar­rest.

“I cer­tain­ly will not be in a po­si­tion to in­ter­fere nor would I ever with any po­lice mat­ter.

“Ms Mc­Don­ald asked me square­ly on that day if I knew some­thing and I re­port­ed to her that I knew noth­ing.

“Sec­ond­ly, on the day that the po­lice en­tered in­to her home and con­duct­ed the search and took her in­to cus­tody, I did re­ceive a call from Ms Mc­Don­ald very ear­ly in the morn­ing.

“She told me what was hap­pen­ing. I told her, ‘Mar­lene you have to, of course, co­op­er­ate with the Trinidad & To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’. She asked me if I knew any­thing about it. I told her I knew noth­ing about it,” Al-Rawi said.

On Au­gust 8, po­lice ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant at Mc­Don­ald’s home in Mara­cas, St Joseph and ar­rest­ed her in con­nec­tion with a six-year-old in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leg­ed si­phon­ing of over $1 mil­li­on from a Gov­ern­ment Min­istry to three or­gan­i­sa­tions which po­lice claimed linked to fam­i­ly and friends of her hus­band Michael Carew.

Four days lat­er, she was charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing and oth­er of­fences.

Carew, for­mer head of the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help Edgar Zephyrine and two con­trac­tors—Wayne An­tho­ny and Vic­tor McEachrane were charged in the same mat­ter. McEachrane is al­so a di­rec­tor of the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion. 

It was in the Low­er House last Mon­day that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley first made the rev­e­la­tion that the Per­sad-Bisses­sar had ad­vance knowl­edge of Mc­Don­ald’s ar­rest.

Even as chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, Row­ley said, he did not know of Mc­Don­ald’s im­pend­ing ar­rest. 

On Wednes­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith de­nied that there was a leak among his of­fi­cers to the Op­po­si­tion. Grif­fith said that sev­er­al weeks be­fore Mc­Don­ald’s ar­rest, there was noth­ing to cause her de­ten­tion.

He added that he con­duct­ed an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion and was as­sured by his of­fi­cers that there was no breach.

Al-Rawi said that Grif­fith’s com­ments were not “nec­es­sar­i­ly in­con­sis­tent” with what has hap­pened.

How­ev­er, he said that he did not ex­pect Per­sad-Bisses­sar to get any in­for­ma­tion from Grif­fith.

He said: “What I am ab­solute­ly ca­pa­ble of con­firm­ing to­day is that I know for a fact that Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar did tell Mrs Mc­Don­ald that she was go­ing to be ar­rest­ed. My ques­tion is how could the leader of the Op­po­si­tion know that? How could the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion have in­for­ma­tion, which I am sure, comes from low­er-rank­ing po­lice of­fi­cers of po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions?

“I can con­firm to you the Prime Min­is­ter, the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and I as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al knew noth­ing of it. It would not be un­com­mon if an event had hap­pened that we would have been told af­ter the fact, but we cer­tain­ly would not be told nor would we ever ask about any on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions. There are very clear rules in so­ci­ety.”

Asked whether such a tip-off would con­sti­tute a crime of per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice, Al-Rawi said that he would not like to “spec­u­late as the le­gal ad­vi­sor for Trinidad and To­ba­go on any turpi­tude from Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar.”

He said the one voice miss­ing in this dis­course was Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who has been silent.