Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

In 2009, Dr Hafi­zo­ol Ali Mo­hammed ex­pressed an in­ter­est in as­sist­ing the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment with na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures in T&T.In an Au­gust 4 let­ter to then prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, Mo­hammed, a mem­ber of the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the 1990 coup at­tempt, asked for a meet­ing and ex­pressed his will­ing­ness to serve. How­ev­er, he was not ap­proached to serve un­der the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Mo­hammed al­so sent a let­ter to then min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty Mar­tin Joseph. A copy of his cur­ricu­lum vi­tae (CV) was al­so at­tached.Among the qual­i­fi­ca­tions he list­ed was a doc­tor of sci­ence de­gree (DSc) in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions that he ob­tained from At­lantic In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty, which is de­scribed by var­i­ous Web sites as a diplo­ma mill.

As he did on his cur­rent CV, Mo­hammed al­so claimed he was the au­thor of the US Army Strate­gic Vi­sion road map. How­ev­er, the Web site for that road map does not men­tion Mo­hammed in con­nec­tion with his claim.In his let­ter to Man­ning, Mo­hammed list­ed im­pres­sive aca­d­e­m­ic and mil­i­tary qual­i­fi­ca­tions and claimed for­mer head of the Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit Brig Pe­ter Joseph could con­firm his cre­den­tials.

He wrote: "In the event you wish to con­firm my cre­den­tials, please con­sult with Brig Joseph in whom I have the ut­most re­spect and con­fi­dence, not to ex­clude the fact that he is my es­teemed army col­league."I have dis­cussed this mat­ter and sought his guid­ance pri­or to my let­ter to Min­is­ter Joseph."I would like to pro­vide an in-depth analy­sis of the cur­rent plan that is be­ing rec­om­mend­ed by MG Ross, ei­ther in­de­pen­dent­ly or as part of a work­ing group.

"If you wish to dis­cuss this mat­ter with me, please so ad­vise as to the ap­pro­pri­ate day and time with you. My es­teemed col­league and friend in Trinidad, Richard Koorn, of Don­rich Se­cu­ri­ty, will ac­com­pa­ny me."Don­rich Se­cu­ri­ty Ken­nels is lo­cat­ed at Fac­to­ry Road, Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca, on the same com­pound where re­tired po­lice in­spec­tor Mervyn Cord­ner claimed the Fly­ing Squad was se­cret­ly re­vived.

Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Cord­ner's claims.When T&T Guardian con­tact­ed Man­ning yes­ter­day, in­quir­ing why Mo­hammed was nev­er asked to serve in any ca­pac­i­ty, he replied: "I am cur­rent­ly do­ing phys­io­ther­a­py. I am on­ly in­ter­est­ed in re­cov­er­ing."

Joseph said he could not ver­i­fy Mo­hammed's cre­den­tials. He said he met Mo­hammed in 1994 when a col­league died."How could I ver­i­fy his cre­den­tials? I did not go to school with him. The per­son who went to school with him is dead. We nev­er at­tend­ed any schools to­geth­er," he said

One year af­ter Mo­hammed was blanked by the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, he ap­proached the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment ex­press­ing a keen in­ter­est in as­sist­ing with na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures.He first con­tact­ed For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an via e-mail in 2010.

An e-mail was al­so sent to the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty short­ly af­ter his new ap­point­ment in which he stat­ed: "Con­grat­u­la­tions are in or­der for you ap­point­ment as the new Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in T&T. Your achieve­ments and man-of-ac­tion fame pre­cede you well. I would like to say that you are not alone in the aim to pro­vide T&T as safe and se­cured haven. And this is the rea­son for which I am send­ing you this e-mail.

"I have at­tached my CV for your in­for­ma­tion and to de­ter­mine in what way I can as­sist you. I al­so have at­tached a pho­to that we took in Ch­agua­nas in De­cem­ber 2011."The e-mail fur­ther stat­ed: "I sit on the en­quiry in­to the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup. I wear four hats: a for­eign­er, an in­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert, a com­bat vet­er­an and a Mus­lim.

"I wish you luck and hope to hear from you soon. Our next en­quiry ses­sion is sched­uled for the last week in Au­gust and will last for two weeks. How­ev­er, I am pre­pared to be on the next flight to meet with you re­gard­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of T&T and any oth­er mat­ters as may be deemed ap­pro­pri­ate."The Gov­ern­ment is ex­pect­ed to make a de­ci­sion this week on Mo­hammed's sta­tus as a com­mis­sion­er in the en­quiry in­to the 1990 coup at­tempt.