Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Is­rael Khan, SC, says the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress was out of place to lob­by Cari­com lead­ers to ask Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to re­move Na­tionl Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds ahead of yes­ter­day re­gion­al crime sysm­po­sium.

“It is in­fra dig and to­tal­ly out of place for the UNC to call up­on Cari­com lead­ers to get rid of our Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds on the grounds of his in­com­pe­tence,” Khan said yes­ter­day.

“The is­sue of Min­is­ter Hinds’ in­ept­ness in re­la­tion to the main­te­nance of law and or­der and pub­lic safe­ty of our cit­i­zens is pure­ly a do­mes­tic prob­lem and his lack of per­for­mance does not over­lap in­to the Caribbean ju­ris­dic­tions,” he said.

The UNC made the call on Sun­day as re­gion­al lead­ers start­ing ar­riv­ing in T&T for the sym­po­sium, which be­gan yes­ter­day at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain.

How­ev­er, Khan said in­stead of fo­cus­ing its at­ten­tion on Hinds, the UNC should have looked more at the sym­po­sium’s goals.

“I had ex­pect­ed that the UNC, a par­ty in wait­ing to form the next T&T gov­ern­ment, would have called up­on the Cari­com lead­ers to fo­cus their at­ten­tion on two main is­sues which af­fect the en­tire Caribbean: the im­por­ta­tion of co­caine and firearms in­to the var­i­ous ju­ris­dic­tions and the mas­sive mon­ey laun­der­ing by the for­eign mafia, which is af­fect­ing fi­nan­cial man­age­ment of all Caribbean ju­ris­dic­tion,” he said.