En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin Khan, 63, has died. Khan, who has been suf­fer­ing from heart prob­lems for years, was last seen by his rel­a­tives around 11.30 pm last Fri­day be­fore re­tir­ing to bed. Po­lice re­ports stat­ed that they awoke at 6.30 am yes­ter­day and went look­ing for him to have their reg­u­lar morn­ing cof­fee, but they found his body un­re­spon­sive in his chair. Khan's body bore no marks of vi­o­lence.

Khan, who was in good health, re­ceived his As­traZeneca vac­ci­na­tion on Tues­day at the Diego Mar­tin Health Fa­cil­i­ty.

But even as the coun­try mourns his sur­prise pass­ing, ques­tions are be­ing asked about whether the As­traZeneca vac­cine which he re­ceived four days pri­or may have played a part in his sud­den death.

Ques­tions about the pos­si­ble role the vac­ci­na­tion may have played in his death were am­pli­fied in the wake of the death of pen­sion­er Ijaz Han­iff last week as well.

A few coun­tries have ini­ti­at­ed probes in­to the As­traZeneca vac­cine af­ter com­plaints of clot­ting. Han­iff, a heart pa­tient un­der the South­West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty’s (SWRHA) care, de­vel­oped blood clots and paral­y­sis with­in days of tak­ing his jab shot. He died eight days af­ter his first in­jec­tion.

Minister of Energy and Energy Industries Franklin Khan.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

The SWRHA is still in­ves­ti­gat­ing Han­nif’s case but said ini­tial ev­i­dence sug­gest­ed no link be­tween the vac­cine and his death. How­ev­er, Han­nif’s rel­a­tives in­sist­ed that the doc­tors who were treat­ing him at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal said the on­ly thing they could at­tribute to the clot­ting was the vac­cine.

As cit­i­zens mourned Khan’s pass­ing yes­ter­day, the is­sue was fore­most on their minds.

In 2017 Khan was on va­ca­tion in Thai­land when it was re­port­ed that he had suf­fered a heart at­tack. It was lat­er clar­i­fied that while he did not have a heart at­tack, he did have a heart-re­lat­ed is­sue and was rest­ing at home.

At yes­ter­day's Min­istry of Health COVID-19 up­date, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram was asked whether Khan re­ceived the COVID-19 vac­cine and whether he was a point of con­tact for the Prime Min­is­ter. Paras­ram re­ferred those ques­tions to ei­ther the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter or the Min­istry of En­er­gy.

"Con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly. Any in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to the ho­n­ourable min­is­ter will be com­ing from ei­ther the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter or the line min­istry of that par­tic­u­lar min­is­ter," Paras­ram said.

In the past two weeks, Khan was front and cen­tre on two im­por­tant mat­ters. As Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, he was the point per­son for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the ex­plo­sion and sub­se­quent fire at Ni­Quan En­er­gy in Point Lisas and as Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness, the Op­po­si­tion was in con­tact with him to get the Par­lia­ment cham­ber sani­tised since Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley had at­tend­ed a sit­ting with­in the 14 days of be­ing di­ag­nosed with the Coro­n­avirus.

The Op­po­si­tion was al­so push­ing for Khan to be test­ed for the dis­ease since he was in close prox­im­i­ty to the Prime Min­is­ter at an en­er­gy event days be­fore the PM was di­ag­nosed as pos­i­tive.

While there is cur­rent­ly no ev­i­dence to sup­port the the­o­ry that the COVID vac­cine may be cre­at­ing com­pli­ca­tions for heart pa­tients, for­mer Ari­ma may­or Ghas­san Youseph post­ed a warn­ing on so­cial me­dia about his con­cerns as a heart pa­tient who took the vac­cine.

Youseph claims he took the vac­cine on Thurs­day and one day lat­er his heart went in­to “atri­al fib­ril­la­tion" or an ab­nor­mal beat.

"Yes­ter­day (Thurs­day), I took the As­traZeneca vac­cine, check­ing my heart rhythm with a ma­chine ac­quired three years ago, where I check every morn­ing on the heart­beat, is say­ing it seems this morn­ing that my heart went in­to Atri­al Fib­ril­la­tion," he said.

He warned peo­ple who suf­fer from this con­di­tion to check with their doc­tor be­fore tak­ing the vac­cine.

"Hope­ful­ly, the heart will go back in­to a nor­mal rhythm soon, I will keep you up­dat­ed," he said.

Many of Khan's col­leagues ei­ther took to so­cial me­dia or is­sued me­dia re­leas­es ex­press­ing their shock at this sud­den loss.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley de­scribed Khan as a "pa­tri­ot" and "a son of the soil" and of­fered his "deep­est con­do­lences" to Khan's fam­i­ly.

Row­ley said he was "ex­treme­ly sad­dened" by the pass­ing of his col­league and friend and said Khan would be re­mem­bered as a man who ded­i­cat­ed his life to pub­lic ser­vice.

"May God bring com­fort and strength to his loved ones," Row­ley post­ed on so­cial me­dia.

One for­mer gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor took to so­cial me­dia to de­scribe see­ing Khan at the Ny­lon Pool, To­ba­go, just days ago and said he al­ways of­fered great ad­vice.

Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Kaz­im Ho­sein re­port­ed­ly told an­oth­er me­dia house that he spoke with Khan on Fri­day night and all was well. Khan, he said, was not ail­ing and did not in­di­cate that he was un­well.

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter un­der the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment Kevin Ram­nar­ine al­so of­fered his con­do­lences, say­ing that he was "sad­dened" by Khan's pass­ing.

"In re­cent times we had de­vel­oped a cor­dial re­la­tion­ship. I of­fer my con­do­lences and sym­pa­thy to his fam­i­ly and loved ones. May he rest in peace," Ram­nar­ine said.

So­cial me­dia spec­u­la­tions

Some peo­ple on so­cial me­dia out­right ques­tioned whether he died from COVID-19 while oth­ers ques­tioned why his vac­ci­na­tion was not be­ing dis­cussed more open­ly.

One so­cial me­dia user said "so wait, we not talk­ing about his vac­ci­na­tion a few days ago?"

An­oth­er said "I hope you'll tak­ing notes...per­sons with heart dis­ease die af­ter be­ing vac­ci­nat­ed."

An­oth­er was adamant "not me, I eh tak­ing it". Yet an­oth­er said "when I heard of his pass­ing the first ques­tion came to mind was 'did he take the vac­cine?' Now it's as clear as day."

One oth­er per­son said the Gov­ern­ment could "keep the vac and store it."

An­oth­er per­son shared the same sto­ry un­der the cap­tion "open your eyes."

'Colour­ful po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry'

The late Franklin Khan en­joyed a colour­ful po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry. Long be­fore tak­ing up the role of Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, Khan en­tered pol­i­tics in 2002 and was ap­point­ed min­is­ter of works and trans­port by the late for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning.

In 2015, when the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment won the elec­tions, Khan was named min­is­ter of rur­al de­vel­op­ment and lo­cal gov­ern­ment and one year lat­er was reshuf­fled in­to the En­er­gy Min­istry.

He re­tained that post af­ter the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Back in 2005, a for­mer PNM coun­cil­lor, Dansam Dhan­sook ac­cused Khan of cor­rup­tion.

Khan was charged fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions he ac­cept­ed bribes from Dhan­sook in ex­change for con­tracts from 2001 to 2003.

The charges were dropped in 2010 though af­ter Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard found Dan­sook to be an un­re­li­able wit­ness.

More re­cent­ly, in Feb­ru­ary Khan faced off against the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress's (UNC) no-con­fi­dence mo­tion and calls for his res­ig­na­tion. The Op­po­si­tion based its calls on Khan's fail­ure to prop­er­ly man­age the en­er­gy sec­tor, es­pe­cial­ly the shut­down and at­tempt to sell the Petrotrin re­fin­ery to the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU).

Khan de­fend­ed him­self at the time, say­ing that he was not im­pressed or par­tic­u­lar­ly both­ered by the mo­tion.

One month lat­er in March, the Op­po­si­tion slammed Khan again, de­scrib­ing him as "co­matose" in his han­dling of the en­er­gy sec­tor amid the pan­dem­ic. Again, Khan was un­both­ered.

Just days ago, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark said that he wrote to Khan ask­ing him about the sani­ti­sa­tion of the Par­lia­men­tary cham­ber af­ter it was re­vealed that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley con­tract­ed COVID-19. Mark said that Khan called him to tell him sani­ti­sa­tion of the cham­ber was un­nec­es­sary.

The Op­po­si­tion al­so called then for Khan and sev­er­al oth­er Gov­ern­ment mem­bers to be test­ed for the virus.