Richard Lord

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley is call­ing for a crim­i­nal probe in­to the ap­point­ment of Resh­mi Ram­nar­ine as di­rec­tor of the Se­cu­ri­ty In­tel­li­gence Agency/Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency. He made the call dur­ing a news con­fer­ence at his of­fice on Charles Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. "We, at the lev­el of the Op­po­si­tion, are now say­ing that there is need for a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion to in­ves­ti­gate a crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy where of­fi­cers of state fab­ri­cat­ed in­for­ma­tion, pro­duced that in­for­ma­tion to the Prime Min­is­ter," Row­ley said.

He said deputy di­rec­tor of the SSA, Julie Browne, com­pro­mised her po­si­tion when she sub­mit­ted a let­ter to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar rec­om­mend­ing Ram­nar­ine for the top agency post.

Row­ley said Per­sad-Bisses­sar must now an­swer three ques­tions:

• Who took the de­ci­sion to fire the 27-mem­ber staff at the SIA?

• What was the process used to fire them? and,

• were their dis­missals con­nect­ed to the de­liv­ery of the SIA files to the PM's pri­vate home in Pe­nal on Oc­to­ber 17.

He added: "The deputy di­rec­tor (Browne) has now been com­pro­mised and the ques­tion is did she play a role. Row­ley said that was achieved against the back­ground of Per­sad-Bisses­sar claim­ing she did not know Ram­nar­ine. "It is not cor­rect to say that the Prime Min­is­ter did not know Ms Ram­nar­ine be­fore," he said. He said he was con­cerned that Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in her ca­pac­i­ty as chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, ap­proved such a "ma­jor ap­point­ment" and was un­aware of who Ram­nar­ine was. He in­sist­ed the ap­point­ment was "a con­spir­a­cy to­wards a de­lib­er­ate end and it war­rants fur­ther de­tailed in­ves­ti­ga­tion to al­low per­sons to be forced to speak the truth to an in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cer."

He said the Op­po­si­tion had more in­for­ma­tion on the fi­as­co but "there are le­gal de­vel­op­ments and le­gal im­pli­ca­tions and we say no more at this time as the mat­ter un­folds." He main­tained the "fi­as­co has to be ad­dressed by the Gov­ern­ment of T&T and it falls to the Prime Min­is­ter to ad­dress her per­son­al con­duct in the mat­ter." He said he raised the pos­si­bil­i­ty of Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­ing black­mailed in­to ap­point­ing Ram­nar­ine be­cause of the "ir­ra­tional­i­ty" of her ac­tions in the mat­ter. "It is our view that there are per­sons who are in a po­si­tion to have the Prime Min­is­ter do what they want out of fear of ex­po­sure and the Prime Min­is­ter's ac­tions on this mat­ter de­fies log­ic," the Op­po­si­tion Leader said.