Jesse Ramdeo

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress has placed Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi in the fir­ing line fol­low­ing the col­lapse of the al­leged le­gal fee kick­back case in­volv­ing for­mer AG Anand Ram­lo­gan and for­mer UNC sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen.

On Mon­day, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard dis­con­tin­ued cor­rup­tion charges af­ter the State’s main wit­ness, Nel­son Vin­cent, opt­ed not to tes­ti­fy be­fore a civ­il mat­ter in­volv­ing the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment he had en­tered in­to with the for­mer AG was set­tled.

At a press con­fer­ence at the Op­po­si­tion’s of­fice in Port-of-Spain on Tues­day, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had doc­u­ments in her pos­ses­sion to show Nel­son was su­ing the State for $150 mil­lion.

“He is claim­ing over $150 mil­lion TT dol­lars. This mon­ey is not of the AG or the State, but of the tax­pay­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go. It would ap­pear that his claim is based on the breach of the per­ni­cious in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment that Al-Rawi se­cret­ly en­tered in­to with Mr Nel­son.”

The civ­il law­suit is what trig­gered the col­lapse of the Ramdeen and Ram­lo­gan case.

While the le­git­i­ma­cy of the doc­u­ment is yet to be cor­rob­o­rat­ed, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ques­tioned whether Al-Rawi act­ed alone when he signed off on the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment and whether he breached the Con­sti­tu­tion’s sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers.

She said it ap­peared Al-Rawi may have crossed the line as a mem­ber of the Gov­ern­ment and must now face the con­se­quences.

She said, “That in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment pur­ports to grant to the State wit­ness, Mr Nel­son, wit­ness in crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings but he is al­so a de­fen­dant. That agree­ment was to pay his fine and the oth­er in­duce­ments in­clud­ed in the said in­dem­ni­ty and this could hard­ly be au­tho­rised by a sole min­is­ter on his own. That is why I asked yes­ter­day:

1. Did the Cab­i­net know and au­tho­rise this in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment?

2. Did the PM know and au­tho­rise this in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment?

3. Or did the AG take up him­self on a frol­ic of his own and went off to sign a dam­ag­ing doc­u­ment?

“What it does is it in­dem­ni­fies this state wit­ness, al­so de­fen­dant, from hav­ing to pay fines or dam­ages and be­ing sued in any court of law. From tax­es. This is mad­ness that an AG can sign it over. He doesn’t have this pow­er, it lies on­ly with the DPP. It is fool­hardy to be­lieve that such an im­por­tant doc­u­ment did not have sight and ap­proval of the Cab­i­net or at least the head of Gov­ern­ment, the PM, be­fore it was ex­e­cut­ed.”

She said Al-Rawi was blind­ed by what she de­scribed as his per­son­al de­sire to get the forg­er AG and for­mer UNC sen­a­tor at any cost and must now face the con­se­quences for his ac­tion.

“To­day, I de­mand Al-Rawi’s im­me­di­ate res­ig­na­tion from the Cab­i­net. A State wit­ness has filed a claim against him which rais­es se­ri­ous is­sues of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, wit­ness tam­per­ing and con­spir­a­cy to per­vert the course of jus­tice. It is un­ten­able and un­ac­cept­able for him to sit in the cab­i­net with such se­ri­ous is­sues swirling over his head.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so al­leged that a lawyer (name called) pock­et­ed over TT$6 mil­lion from the le­gal fee kick­back case. She ques­tioned if that was an ap­pro­pri­ate fee for a ju­nior at­tor­ney. She said claimed the lawyer (name with­held) is known to be a per­son­al friend of Al-Rawi, and now has ben­e­fit­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly from State briefs.

“This was a vul­gar abuse of pub­lic funds and I call up­on the Crim­i­nal Bar to in­di­cate whether it was ap­pro­pri­ate for Gov­ern­ment to pay the le­gal fees for a de­fen­dant who was be­ing pros­e­cut­ed by the State.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tained that the in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment and sub­se­quent le­gal fees un­der the for­mer AG’s watch was a cause for con­cern and that Al Rawi’s ac­tion was tan­ta­mount to mis­be­hav­iour in of­fice.

Mean­while, in a state­ment on Tues­day, Al-Rawi re­ject­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s al­le­ga­tions and said the is­sues raised will be ad­dressed at a press con­fer­ence to­day.