Richard Lord

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says noth­ing is wrong with fo­cussing on the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty's (PCA) re­port on the New Fly­ing Squad In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit.She made the com­ment yes­ter­day in re­sponse to ques­tions of a sug­ges­tion ear­li­er by Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard that fo­cus be placed the re­port's con­tents and not the leak­ing of the doc­u­ment.A pub­lic spat has de­vel­oped be­tween At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and PCA di­rec­tor Gillian Lucky since Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi re­vealed he had ob­tained the PCA and Po­lice Ser­vice re­port on the unit.

Al-Rawi re­vealed the ma­jor rec­om­men­da­tions of two re­ports, one by the PCA and the oth­er by the Po­lice Ser­vice, on the Fly­ing Squad dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to a de­bate in the Up­per House about three weeks ago.He said then the doc­u­ments rec­om­mend­ed that crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings be con­sid­ered by the DPP against po­lice of­fi­cers in­volved in the es­tab­lish­ment of the squad.

Ram­lo­gan has main­tained that the re­port was leaked by the PCA and not the Po­lice Ser­vice and ac­cused Al Rawi of trea­son. PCA di­rec­tor Gillian Lucky and Al-Rawi have both de­nied Ram­lo­gan's claim.Ram­lo­gan claimed the doc­u­ment was leaked by the PCA to Al-Rawi and the me­dia but both Lucky and Al-Rawi have de­nied that.Ram­lo­gan al­so ac­cused Al-Rawi of trea­son for re­veal­ing the con­tents of the re­port be­fore it had been passed on to the Gov­ern­ment.

Gas­pard fi­nal­ly broke his si­lence on the mat­ter yes­ter­day, say­ing his of­fice, which re­ceived the re­port di­rect­ly from the PCA, al­so did not leak the re­port. How­ev­er, he said he pre­ferred to fo­cus on the con­tents of the re­port and not the leak. Not­ing yes­ter­day that she had not heard what Gas­pard had said and was go­ing on what the me­dia had told her of his com­ments, the PM said: "I would not want to speak on that mat­ter. It is be­fore the DPP. It is a mater that is a live in­ves­ti­ga­tion on the part of the DPP."For us to fo­cus on the con­tents of the re­port, noth­ing is wrong with that, ex­cept that the re­port has not come to us. It nev­er came to us, it was al­ways in the purview of the of­fice of the DPP and I am cer­tain the DPP will take his own ad­vice which is to fo­cus on the con­tents of the re­port."

Asked if she had re­quest­ed the re­port or in­tend­ed to do so, she said: "Not un­til the DPP re­ports on the re­port."When mat­ters are be­fore the DPP it is im­prop­er for any ex­ec­u­tive to seek re­ports from him or to read re­ports that are un­der his in­ves­ti­ga­tion. It would be to­tal­ly im­prop­er and a bridge of the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers be­tween us."Per­sad-Bisses­sar was ques­tioned fol­low­ing an af­ter­noon tea event for re­li­gious lead­ers in ob­ser­vance of East­er at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's.On an­oth­er is­sue, Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed that her re­quest to have T&T ac­cede to the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice for crim­i­nal mat­ters on­ly has been re­ject­ed by Cari­com.The treaty which es­tab­lished the CCJ re­quired that T&T get the sup­port of all mem­ber states to ef­fect the re­quest­ed change."We did not get una­nim­i­ty for that so it can­not pro­ceed," she added.