Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and at­tor­ney Sub­has Pan­day has de­fend­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion to keep Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee in her Cab­i­net.

Lee and busi­ness­man Hugh Leong Poi were re-ar­rest­ed on Oc­to­ber 7 over al­le­ga­tions of con­spir­ing to de­fraud the State over the im­por­ta­tion of a $2 mil­lion Mer­cedes-Benz G63 AMG. The State al­leges that Lee false­ly claimed own­er­ship to ben­e­fit from par­lia­men­tary tax ex­emp­tions.

They were pre­vi­ous­ly freed from the charges but were re­ar­rest­ed on Oc­to­ber 7. Lee was sub­se­quent­ly grant­ed $1 mil­lion bail, while Leong Poi was grant­ed $600,000 bail. Fol­low­ing his ar­rest, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the ju­di­cial sys­tem and has not fired Lee de­spite pres­sure from the Op­po­si­tion. Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at his San Fer­nan­do Law Cham­bers yes­ter­day, Pan­day said Lee's re­ar­rest has been turned in­to a po­lit­i­cal foot­ball.

“How­ev­er, I wish to agree with the Prime Min­is­ter's po­si­tion to keep him on as a min­is­ter. The op­po­nents are call­ing for him to be re­moved. I say don't re­move him. The con­sti­tu­tion is there, and the Prime Min­is­ter has bro­ken no law, and she is abid­ing by the con­sti­tu­tion," Pan­day said.

He ex­plained that the con­sti­tu­tion de­ter­mines un­der what con­di­tions a min­is­ter has to va­cate his seat, and "he doesn't have to va­cate his seat."

Urg­ing the Prime Min­is­ter to stand her ground, Pan­day said Lee's po­si­tion is dif­fer­ent from the le­gal trou­bles faced by for­mer min­is­ters Jack Warn­er and Anand Ram­lo­gan, who were fired from her pre­vi­ous Cab­i­net.

He said Lee was pre­vi­ous­ly dis­charged af­ter a pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry was held in­to the charges.

Sub­se­quent to that, he said Lee was elect­ed to of­fice. "The Prime Min­is­ter, I am cer­tain, if she were aware, like all of us, that there would have been fur­ther in­quiry, she would not have picked him."

Pan­day called Lee’s re-ar­rest un­fair and over­ly harsh, not­ing that Lee had re­sumed his nor­mal life and had no pri­or no­tice of fu­ture pros­e­cu­tion.