James Philbert, who un­til re­cent­ly opt­ed to re­main mum on his sud­den de­par­ture, spoke with Sun­day Guardian in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view at his Point Fortin home last week on the role he played in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The for­mer CoP, who on­ly re­turned to the coun­try last month, was busy giv­ing one of his Rot­tweil­er dogs a bath. Philbert said: "When I left I thought the en­quiry was well on the way. I ex­pect­ed some­one would have tak­en it up. I did have cer­tain in­ter­ac­tions with a cer­tain per­son re­gard­ing that in­ves­ti­ga­tion and cer­tain things were re­vealed, which I passed on to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) whom I was in con­sul­ta­tion with up un­til the time I left. "I did what I had to do," Philbert added. "I do not miss the Po­lice Ser­vice but I loved do­ing my work. It feels good be­ing home, noth­ing lasts for­ev­er. At this stage in my life I am pre­pared for any­thing. My dogs have been ne­glect­ed for a while and I am now get­ting time to look af­ter them."

Philbert, how­ev­er, ad­mit­ted that he was not sur­prised with the lat­est de­vel­op­ment in which the State opt­ed to dis­con­tin­ue the cor­rup­tion charges against Khan, who was the for­mer PNM chair­man and min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port. He was charged with cor­rupt­ly re­ceiv­ing bribes to­talling to $120,500 in re­turn for seis­mic con­tracts. "The col­lapse of the case was ex­pect­ed be­cause of what came out. I did what I had to do in that in­ves­ti­ga­tion. While I was in of­fice, Se­nior Supt Mar­tin More­an was man­dat­ed to do the en­quiry with the help of An­ti-Crime Unit head Harold Philip.

"State­ments and doc­u­ments were col­lect­ed be­fore More­an pro­ceed­ed on leave. You can­not have one per­son in that en­quiry; you will need two or more in­ves­ti­ga­tors on that case so if one per­son dies the in­ves­ti­ga­tion will con­tin­ue. More­an would have hand­ed over a sum­ma­ry of his in­ves­ti­ga­tions de­tail­ing what he picked up. It is like pass­ing on the ba­ton to the next per­son in­ves­ti­gat­ing," he added. "Since I left I have not asked any­one any­thing. I stay in bed watch­ing movies. I have not read pa­pers in the longest while, it is on­ly last week I was at­tract­ed to the front page sto­ry. I have con­fi­dence that a prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be done," Philbert end­ed. On­ly on Fri­day, it was re­vealed that Philbert was among one of the promi­nent per­sons in so­ci­ety who was be­ing mon­i­tored by the Se­cu­ri­ty In­tel­li­gence Agency un­der the PNM gov­ern­ment.

In­ves­ti­ga­tion de­layed de­lib­er­ate­ly?

Fur­ther prob­ing by Sun­day Guardian re­vealed that be­fore More­an pro­ceed­ed on pre-re­tire­ment leave, he made a pro­pos­al for the State to pur­chase his leave in or­der for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion not to be de­layed. But no re­sponse was forth­com­ing, so the mat­ter was passed on to act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice David Nedd. "Some­body came off leave and Nedd was in­formed that he may have had to go back as the se­nior supt in charge of homi­cide. He felt it was like a de­mo­tion and as a re­sult took his va­ca­tion leave," a top po­lice source dis­closed.

Khan, Williams seek­ing le­gal ad­vice

Both Williams and Khan, who were freed of the bribery charges, are now seek­ing le­gal ad­vice from their at­tor­neys. The DPP's of­fice had ap­plied for a judge's war­rant to re­view the rul­ing of se­nior mag­is­trate Lu­ci­na Car­de­nas-Ra­goo­nanan who cleared Williams, the then Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, of ac­cept­ing a $75,000 bribe. The top po­lice source added: "If that war­rant was grant­ed the case would have still col­lapsed in the High Court." Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar may not have known the doc­u­ments were false when she read it in Par­lia­ment in 2004. "I can tell you the PM is very con­cerned over the lat­est rev­e­la­tions and de­vel­op­ments," a well-placed source in Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty added.