SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

“They lied. It is a bla­tant nasty lie.”

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi yes­ter­day said he was set up by un­scrupu­lous politi­cians as he ac­cused sev­er­al peo­ple from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) of en­gag­ing in cy­ber-crime.

He claimed they fab­ri­cat­ed a video to make it ap­pear that he had made in­sen­si­tive and deroga­to­ry com­ments re­lat­ing to the pub­lic sup­port fol­low­ing the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of An­drea Bharatt.

Ap­peal­ing to the UNC’s leader Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar’s ma­ter­nal in­stincts, he urged her to cau­tion her mem­bers.

Re­play­ing the record­ing of what was said in the Par­lia­ment last week, Al-Rawi said he was say­ing to “Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar, Khadi­jah Ameen and Sad­dam Ho­sein that there is no need for you to have croc­o­dile tears and go on a pave­ment when you should turn up in the Par­lia­ment and vote for the same thing you ap­proved.”

The AG has been heav­i­ly crit­i­cised on so­cial me­dia for his sup­posed lack of em­pa­thy and sym­pa­thy, as well as al­leged re­marks which ap­peared to dis­miss the hurt, pain and grief the fam­i­lies of kid­napped, miss­ing and de­ceased per­sons were re­liv­ing fol­low­ing Bharatt’s death.

Apol­o­gis­ing for the emo­tion­al dis­tress a par­tic­u­lar so­cial me­dia user would have en­dured yet again as a re­sult, he said, “I am so sor­ry she had to be a vic­tim again.”

Seek­ing to un­der­score just how dis­ap­point­ed he was with for­mer AG Anand Ram­lo­gan, Al-Rawi said he and his team would ap­pear in court to­day to ar­gue for the strik­ing down of no bail for mur­der.

Al-Rawi said, “Whilst we in this coun­try are fight­ing for bail amend­ments to lock peo­ple up un­der ju­di­cial con­sid­er­a­tions, the UNC’s Chief Ad­vo­cate and past AG, Anand Ram­lo­gan will be in the court to­mor­row (Feb 10) at­tempt­ing to strike out and cause mod­i­fi­ca­tions so there is no de­nial of bail for peo­ple on a charge for mur­der.”

Writ­ten test of AG’s state­ment

“The Wit­ness Anonymi­ty Or­ders which gives wit­ness­es a fight­ing chance, so their lives can be pre­served, so they can turn up in­to court and give ev­i­dence and not have tri­als limp­ing along or hav­ing ac­cused walk free as they must when cas­es are dis­charged cause wit­ness­es don’t turn up…the fight­ing chance to pre­serve lives of wit­ness­es by the use of Wit­ness Anony­mous Or­ders ap­proved by the MP for Siparia when PM fell in­to odi­um and dis­grace un­der the hand of Sen­a­tor Sad­dam Ho­sein. What is dif­fer­ent be­tween 2013 pol­i­cy ap­proved un­der the MP for Siparia and the law, which we as a coun­ty have to now fight…it is all well and good to pick up a can­dle and hold a vig­il when we each have an op­por­tu­ni­ty as in this house to­day we do, to take our per­spec­tive roles se­ri­ous­ly….stop play­ing games. No need to hold a can­dle on a pave­ment, cry­ing for a cit­i­zen of this coun­try…a child mur­dered…when you can turn up in the Par­lia­ment and be con­sis­tent with your pol­i­cy to re­form the laws of T&T.”