Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds is dis­miss­ing the UNC’s threat to take him be­fore the Par­lia­ment’s Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges, as he called the par­ty’s in­ten­tions “a clown show.” 

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Hinds said he had more im­por­tant is­sues to wor­ry about.

“The mat­ters that fall to my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go are too grave and press­ing for me to waste my time on friv­o­lous and friv­o­li­ty from the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion and her co­horts,” he stat­ed. 

On Thurs­day, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Guardian Me­dia that Hinds breached par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege by telling an un­truth to a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in 2022. The pur­port­ed ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed by the UNC to the me­dia came by way of al­leged What­sApp con­ver­sa­tions be­tween Min­is­ter Hinds and then Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith in 2021.

Those mes­sages claim that Min­is­ter Hinds re­quest­ed “favourable con­sid­er­a­tion” for mem­bers of his se­cu­ri­ty de­tail to be is­sued firearm users’ li­cences (FUL).  

But when asked in the 2022 JSC if he ever rec­om­mend­ed any­one for a FUL the min­is­ter de­nied ever do­ing so. 

When Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the min­is­ter via phone yes­ter­day, he ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that this sto­ry was still be­ing pur­sued.

“I have no time to­day to be mis­di­rect­ed with their sideshows and their clown shows. Be­cause the most im­por­tant is­sue that you in the me­dia, the Guardian (News­pa­per) and CNC3 have lost sight of, is that the re­al is­sue that in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the firearm regime in the po­lice ser­vice, led a re­tired judge to have de­scribed it as a well-oiled white col­lar crim­i­nal en­ter­prise which mat­ters are be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the po­lice,” he posit­ed. 

Min­is­ter Hinds said he had no ques­tions to an­swer to the court or po­lice. “Dr Mooni­lal has ques­tions to an­swer in the court about se­ri­ous mat­ters. The po­lice have in­di­cat­ed that they are in­ves­ti­gat­ing mat­ters re­lat­ing to the is­sue of firearms in this coun­try by Gary Grif­fith,” he added. 

“So any sideshow about who Hinds rec­om­mend or oth­er­wise is in­deed a sideshow, a rab­bit hole, and it pains me to see that you and your me­dia will spend time talk­ing about a sideshow, an emp­ty waste­ful sideshow and would not fo­cus on the core is­sues which are un­der po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.” 

He then said good­bye, and end­ed the call, not al­low­ing for fol­low-up ques­tions. 

Gary: Min­is­ter dodg­ing the ques­tion

But in re­sponse to his state­ment, for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith said it was clear Min­is­ter Hinds was dodg­ing the ques­tion be­cause “that is the cow­ard that he is.” 

Grif­fith said, “He is try­ing to di­vert at­ten­tion to lies. Be­cause he is speak­ing about po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions per­tain­ing to the firearms is­sue. But what is the po­lice in­ves­ti­gat­ing? Any­body made a re­port? Is there any wit­ness? Is there any sus­pect? So, af­ter three years not one per­son has been ar­rest­ed and not one per­son charged per­tain­ing to any of these so-called po­lit­i­cal­ly con­trolled au­dits.” 

Grif­fith added, “So you mean the po­lice have been in­ves­ti­gat­ing a mat­ter for three years and they can­not get a sus­pect or a wit­ness? Not one per­son could be charged. It’s the same thing they did with Email­gate and the at­tempt­ed coup by the SSA.” 

Mean­while, the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion was al­so called up­on by the UNC to in­ves­ti­gate Min­is­ter Hinds for any abuse of pow­er or mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

Sec­tion 33 of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act (IPLA) al­lows the Com­mis­sion to in­ves­ti­gate mat­ters on its own ini­tia­tive with­out a for­mal re­quest from the par­ty.

Guardian Me­dia wrote to the com­mis­sion, ques­tion­ing if it would be look­ing in­to the mat­ter and if there was enough ev­i­dence to trig­ger an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The com­mis­sion re­spond­ed, “It is im­por­tant to note that the com­mis­sion is statu­to­ri­ly con­strained from dis­clos­ing its records and in­for­ma­tion by virtue of Sec­tion 35 of IPLA ex­cept un­der cer­tain spec­i­fied cir­cum­stances.

“With ad­her­ence to the high lev­el of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty re­quired of the com­mis­sion, it is un­able to pro­vide any fur­ther com­ments in re­la­tion to your ques­tions posed.”

The Op­po­si­tion will al­so have to wait un­til Par­lia­ment re­sumes sit­tings in Sep­tem­ber be­fore re­quest­ing that Hinds be re­ferred to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges. The Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges ex­am­ines if any mem­ber of the House vi­o­lates the rights and im­mu­ni­ties en­joyed by the House, col­lec­tive­ly, and by each mem­ber in­di­vid­u­al­ly, with­out which mem­bers could not car­ry out their du­ties and the House could not ful­fil its func­tions.