Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley claimed on Tues­day night that with the end of the cur­few, al­leged crim­i­nals were com­pet­ing to get the best lawyers so they could sue the State for wrong­ful ar­rest and in­car­cer­a­tion. In his ad­dress at a post-bud­get meet­ing at the Point Fortin Town Hall, Row­ley lament­ed a break­down in the in­de­pen­dence of the ser­vice com­mis­sions, the lack of re­sponse from Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs and the con­tin­u­ance of the state of emer­gency. Sup­port­ers, clad in red PNM T-shirts, in­ter­rupt­ed his ad­dress sev­er­al times with loud cheers as he crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment for claim­ing the emer­gency was suc­cess­ful. He said: "We are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a dan­ger­ous col­lapse of in­sti­tu­tions and abuse at every turn. "Gov­ern­ment is now claim­ing suc­cess that the crim­i­nals are trem­bling but crim­i­nals are now all back in their com­mu­ni­ties look­ing for lawyers.

"I un­der­stand there is now great com­pe­ti­tion about who is get­ting the best lawyers for wrong­ful ar­rest and in­car­cer­a­tion." He added: "The Prime Min­is­ter sees that as crim­i­nals trem­bling but I see that as tax­pay­ers grum­bling be­cause tax­pay­ers will have to pay for the Gov­ern­ment's fool­ish­ness." Row­ley said it was com­mon knowl­edge that the po­lice could on­ly pros­e­cute gang mem­bers if they com­mit­ted an of­fence af­ter Au­gust 15 when the An­ti-Gang laws came in­to ef­fect. He was al­so crit­i­cal of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Dwayne Gibbs, say­ing he failed to in­ter­view Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er about the al­leged FI­FA scan­dal. He said: "I wrote to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and he wrote back, say­ing he will ini­ti­ate an in­quiry.

"Weeks and months are pass­ing and all over the world in­ves­ti­ga­tions are go­ing on but our na­tion­als say­ing it is a pri­vate mat­ter, FI­FA is pri­vate com­pa­ny. Our CoP has noth­ing to say." Row­ley told the gath­er­ing: "We wrote to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, say­ing the com­mis­sion­er is show­ing dere­lic­tion of du­ty. Row­ley al­so called for Gibbs to be re­moved from the top po­lice post. "The quick­er we get rid of a for­eign con­tract­ed of­fi­cer who is linked to the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate, the bet­ter we will be in the coun­try be­cause it is clear to me that he sees his job as be­ing de­pen­dent on the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate and he is do­ing every­thing not to dis­please them," he added. Al­so speak­ing at the meet­ing were Point Fortin MP Paula Gopee-Scoon, La Brea MP Fitzger­ald Jef­frey and Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds.