Yvonne Ba­boolal

For­mer Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and at­tor­ney gen­er­al Sel­wyn Richard­son was no co­caine deal­er, no thief and no dis­hon­est per­son.For­mer NAR at­tor­ney gen­er­al An­tho­ny Smart yes­ter­day made a spe­cial re­quest to the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the Ju­ly 27, 1990 in­sur­rec­tion to de­fend the name of his now de­ceased par­lia­men­tary col­league.Smart told the com­mis­sion at the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice, Port-of-Spain, he felt "very pained" about claims Richard­son and Her­bert Atwell, who act­ed as na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter dur­ing the NAR ad­min­is­tra­tion in the late 80s, were in­volved in drug deal­ing.Smart made ref­er­ence to a wit­ness (Ja­maat mem­ber and for­mer 1990 in­sur­gent Ja­maal Shabazz) who made the al­le­ga­tion while giv­ing ev­i­dence last week.

He re­called Shabazz's state­ment that de­ceased Woman Po­lice Of­fi­cer Bernadette James told the Ja­maat lead­er­ship in Au­gust 1987 she en­tered a room at Pi­ar­co Air­port and saw Richard­son, Atwell and one Ma­jor Thomp­son with co­caine on a ta­ble.He added: "It was said Richard­son tast­ed the co­caine and said this is the re­al stuff."When I heard that I was hor­ri­fied though I had heard the ru­mours be­fore. I knew Richard­son rea­son­ably well."He said he had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ob­serve Richard­son very close­ly when he was ap­point­ed a ju­nior min­is­ter un­der him in the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's Min­istry in 1987."He was no thief, no dis­hon­est per­son and no co­caine deal­er," Smart told the com­mis­sion.

He said his firm of so­lic­i­tors did Richard­son's es­tate af­ter he was killed and the for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter died al­most a pau­per."He drove a very hum­ble Corol­la sta­tion wag­on while he was a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter. His lifestyle was sim­ple," Smart added.Not­ing that Richard­son's sub­se­quent mur­der had noth­ing to do with the drug trade and that his salary as a Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter was minis­cule, Smart said when he died he left $23,000 in cash.He added: "He had a prop­er­ty that was mort­gaged. Sel­wyn had no mon­ey. He was no drug deal­er."He was gen­er­al­ly a good man who would not coun­te­nance that sort of thing."

At this point, Smart was re­mind­ed by com­mis­sion chair­man Sir David Sim­mons that the sug­ges­tion giv­en ear­li­er (by Shabazz) was that Richard­son used his po­si­tion to cov­er co­caine des­tined to some promi­nent fam­i­ly.Smart con­tin­ued his de­fence of Richard­son, nev­er­the­less.He said Richard­son's wid­ow, Joyce, called him (Smart) re­cent­ly very dis­traught and un­hap­py over the al­le­ga­tions against her de­ceased hus­band.Re­fer­ring to the "promi­nent fam­i­ly" men­tioned in the al­le­ga­tion, he said Richard­son lived next to a cer­tain fam­i­ly while he oc­cu­pied the of­fi­cial res­i­dence of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in Fed­er­a­tion Park.

Smart said the head of the fam­i­ly asked Richard­son for a rec­om­men­da­tion (for the fam­i­ly) and he was not in­ter­est­ed but gave in when his wife in­sist­ed.He said: "Joyce said the rec­om­men­da­tion end­ed up in a Mi­a­mi court where a son in the fam­i­ly was found guilty on drug charges."Smart said it was the er­ror in giv­ing that rec­om­men­da­tion that re­sult­ed in the talk of Richard­son's in­volve­ment in the drug trade.He al­so de­fend­ed the good name of Atwell, a man of prin­ci­ple and high ideals with whom he was close, he said. He said Atwell was very ill, at present.He added: "He cer­tain­ly did not show he had the where­with­al of some­one deal­ing in co­caine at that lev­el.