Richard Lord

For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day called for an in­de­pen­dent probe in­to an al­leged deal be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning and the leader of the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen Yasin Abu Bakr.She made the call dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion to the bud­get de­bate in the Low­er House yes­ter­day.

Jus­tice Ra­jen­dra Nar­ine on Fri­day asked the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and the act­ing Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions to in­ves­ti­gate Bakr's claim that he made a deal with Man­ning to for­give his (Bakr's) mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar debt to the State fol­low­ing the de­struc­tion of build­ings dur­ing the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup. Ear­li­er yes­ter­day At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie told Par­lia­ment there was no truth in that al­le­ga­tion. The Siparia MP in­sist­ed that al­though the court may have ruled that Abu Bakr's al­le­ga­tion was scan­dalous and ir­rel­e­vant "it does not mean it is not true."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­sist­ed she had se­ri­ous con­cerns about the mat­ter.

"These are se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions that in the pub­lic in­ter­est, ought to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed, ought to be clar­i­fied. I am sure the cit­i­zens of this coun­try are very dis­tressed to think that there may be pos­si­ble crim­i­nal con­duct on the part of the prime min­is­ter," she said. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the judge has not ruled on whether the claim was true or false. She said the UNC wit­nessed the work of the Mus­limeen dur­ing the (2002) elec­tion cam­paign. "And this is what the af­fi­davit is al­leg­ing, that they were used; Mus­limeen pow­er was used to in­tim­i­date, ha­rass and fright­en vot­ers in the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies so the PNM would win the elec­tions."

And she wad­ed in­to Je­re­mie say­ing he was "com­pro­mis­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion by com­ing here" and say­ing that Abu Bakr's al­le­ga­tion was not true. "It is not for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to judge and giv­en his track record of judg­ment, we have very se­ri­ous con­cerns with any­thing that he pro­nounces up­on," Per­sad-Bisses­sar added. She said if Je­re­mie made that state­ment out­side of Par­lia­ment "he would have been guilty of con­tempt of court and he would have had to go to jail." Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Speak­er Baren­dra Sinanan had dif­fer­ent views about the le­gal­i­ty of some­one crit­i­cis­ing a judg­ment. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said one can crit­i­cise the judg­ment but not the judge. "When I lis­tened to the (Je­re­mie's) state­ment it was an at­tack on the judge of the Supreme Court."