Derek Achong

I was not drunk. So said for­mer Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of?Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Collin Par­tap, as he re­spond­ed to al­le­ga­tions aris­ing out of an in­ci­dent on Au­gust 26 out­side the re­cent­ly re-opened Zen night­club, Port-of-Spain. "At no point in time was I drunk or un­der ar­rest," Par­tap, an at­tor­ney, said. Yes­ter­day's state­ment was his first since the in­ci­dent and his dis­missal a day lat­er from Cab­i­net by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. "I just want to give my side of the sto­ry. I am not a drunk and I did not refuse to take a breathal­yser test," he said. While ad­dress­ing the me­dia and scores of his sup­port­ers at his San­gre Grande con­stituen­cy of­fice, Par­tap sought to give his ver­sion of the events which led to his dis­missal. He ad­mit­ted to be­ing stopped by a group of po­lice of­fi­cers out­side the night­club. "I was not ar­rest­ed or de­tained. The of­fi­cers asked me to go to the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion and I com­plied. I nev­er said no," Par­tap said.

The MP for To­co/Man­zanil­la claimed his even­tu­al call to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams came af­ter he heard the of­fi­cers mak­ing com­ments when he was stopped. He said: "I didn't ask the com­mis­sion­er to bail me out. I called the com­mis­sion­er to be an in­de­pen­dent ob­serv­er of the breathal­yser test." Par­tap's ver­sions of the event dif­fered slight­ly from state­ments made by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er and Williams, im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the in­ci­dent. Warn­er and Williams said Par­tap called him (Williams) due to an al­leged con­fronta­tion with po­lice of­fi­cers. Both par­ties stat­ed an ini­tial in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­tra­dict­ed Par­tap's claims about the of­fi­cers' be­hav­iour. While speak­ing at the week­ly po­lice press brief­ing last Wednes­day, Williams said the in­ci­dent was un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion and up­on com­ple­tion a file on the is­sue would be sent to Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard for his con­sid­er­a­tion as to pos­si­ble crim­i­nal charges.

Par­tap yes­ter­day de­nied al­le­ga­tions that call­ing the Po­lice Com­mis­sion in the sit­u­a­tion was an abuse of pow­er. He re­peat­ed­ly de­nied re­fus­ing to take the breathal­yser test when asked by po­lice. He said when he did take the test, al­most an hour af­ter he was stopped by the po­lice, his breathal­yser read­ing was well un­der the le­gal al­co­hol lim­it. He claimed his breathal­yser read­ing would not have changed sig­nif­i­cant­ly dur­ing that pe­ri­od. Par­tap said he was ridiculed af­ter news of the in­ci­dent went pub­lic and called on the po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate two pic­tures of him on the in­ter­net fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent. "Those pic­tures were tak­en by po­lice of­fi­cers. I am sure of it. There were no civil­ians at the sta­tion at the time," Par­tap added. When asked about re­ports which said he was dri­ving a ve­hi­cle which had blue flash­ing lights used by the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, Par­tap said it was a mis­take. "When you are in the ve­hi­cle you can't see the lights. I may have put them on by ac­ci­dent when I was turn­ing on the air-con­di­tion," he added. Par­tap said he was not dis­ap­point­ed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar's de­ci­sion to re­voke his ap­point­ment, say­ing he will now de­vote his time to his con­stituents who need his as­sis­tance.