SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Two po­lit­i­cal can­di­dates are fac­ing scruti­ny af­ter al­le­ga­tions sur­faced that they have been cam­paign­ing along­side in­di­vid­u­als with crim­i­nal back­grounds.

Wayne Sturge, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) can­di­date for To­co/San­gre, con­firmed walk­ing with a per­son con­vict­ed of sum­ma­ry of­fences, while his Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) coun­ter­part, Roger Mon­roe, de­nied any as­so­ci­a­tion with such fig­ures.

Sturge was re­spond­ing to re­cent con­cerns raised by Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance leader Gary Grif­fith dur­ing a meet­ing in San­gre Grande that crim­i­nal el­e­ments were seen walk­ing in the con­stituen­cy with one can­di­date whom he did not iden­ti­fy.

The in­di­vid­ual, charged with ob­scene lan­guage and re­sist­ing ar­rest aris­ing out of a 15-year-old in­ci­dent, was rep­re­sent­ed by Sturge, an at­tor­ney.

“We are see­ing a can­di­date walk­ing with prob­a­bly every sin­gle gang­ster in this neck of the woods. They are walk­ing with these in­di­vid­u­als be­cause promis­es are be­ing made. I ar­rest­ed prob­a­bly half of them when I was com­mis­sion­er of po­lice,” Grif­fith said.

Grif­fith said a sim­i­lar in­ci­dent oc­curred in the D’Abadie/O’Meara seat in the lead-up to the 2010 Gen­er­al Elec­tion with the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship.

“There were two words for that; we called it Life­S­port. We must nev­er let San­gre Grande end up with an­oth­er Life­S­port. That is what is go­ing to hap­pen.”

These gang mem­bers, he said, were giv­en con­tracts, used the mon­ey to pur­chase il­le­gal weapons, paid rogue po­lice of­fi­cers, and scores of men were killed.

In a re­cent state­ment, Sturge ad­mit­ted that he was ac­com­pa­nied “on my walks by a per­son with a con­vic­tion for the sum­ma­ry of­fences ... ob­scene lan­guage and re­sist­ing ar­rest” from an in­ci­dent years ago.

“I, too, have seen them walk­ing with the PNM can­di­date and have even ex­changed pleas­antries with a few of them when I made my way up the coast last Sun­day, hav­ing rep­re­sent­ed them (in court) in the past.

“I take no is­sue with such per­sons walk­ing with the PNM be­cause, when last I checked, a crim­i­nal record doesn’t dis­qual­i­fy a cit­i­zen from his con­sti­tu­tion­al right to free­dom of as­so­ci­a­tion, nor does it de­bar one from tak­ing part in the elec­toral process.”

How­ev­er, Sturge said he was un­aware of any oth­er per­son walk­ing with him who had a crim­i­nal record.

“If in fact there are per­sons walk­ing with me who have pend­ing mat­ters be­fore the courts, I am un­aware, as my walks in­clude over a hun­dred per­sons, most of whom I don’t know and who live in the com­mu­ni­ty or elec­toral dis­trict be­ing can­vassed, and in any event, en­joy the pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence,” Sturge said in the state­ment.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Mon­roe said he heard Grif­fith’s com­ments and ex­pressed sim­i­lar con­cerns.

He, how­ev­er, de­nied hav­ing any as­so­ci­a­tion with crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

Mon­roe ad­mit­ted that he saw an­oth­er can­di­date “walk­ing with known per­sons who have had a very colour­ful past when it comes to the law. So I give all as­sur­ance it was not me, and it would not be me.”

He said he has been cam­paign­ing with law-abid­ing PNM sup­port­ers.

The PNM can­di­date said the UNC was known for “bac­cha­nal, chaos, mis­chief, con­fu­sion, and mis­in­for­ma­tion”. See page 10