Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi yes­ter­day apol­o­gised to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie for say­ing he had lost his way and was “get­ting tied up like a blue mar­ket crab” af­ter Je­re­mie chose to join the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

In the lead up to the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, Je­re­mie, who al­so served as at­tor­ney gen­er­al un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion from 2003 to 2007 and from 2009 to 2010, mount­ed a UNC plat­form and an­nounced his sup­port for Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Fol­low­ing that, Al-Rawi said he was shocked by the move as Je­re­mie had pros­e­cut­ed mem­bers of the UNC and their af­fil­i­ates as the then AG for their al­leged in­volve­ment in de­fraud­ing the State in the ex­pan­sion of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port be­tween the late 1990s and ear­ly 2000s.

Al-Rawi said then: “So to say that Mr John Je­re­mie has demon­strat­ed an in­cred­i­ble con­tra­dic­tion is an un­der­state­ment. I think that what you saw was, if you could vi­su­alise it, you saw Mr Je­re­mie as a blue mar­ket crab tied up snug­ly over a pot of boil­ing wa­ter about to make his way to­wards a callaloo for a Sun­day lunch. That is how tied up he was. I could tell you that I think it in­cred­i­ble that some­one could have lost his way as pro­found­ly as Mr Je­re­mie has, and I’m say­ing that on the record of what he has said and done.”

But Al-Rawi had a change of heart in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day.

He said he made the com­ment in the “cut and thrust of pol­i­tics” adding that some­times un­kind words are said. He said at times po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents get lost in their squab­ble and for­get their op­po­nents have fam­i­lies. He then apol­o­gised to Je­re­mie and his fam­i­ly.

“I pub­licly say to the Ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and his fam­i­ly, that some­times words can be hurt­ful and I ac­cept some­times that words can be hurt­ful and I apol­o­gise. Be­cause you know, some­times you get lost in the fact that you’re talk­ing to an in­di­vid­ual and you for­get the in­di­vid­ual has chil­dren or fam­i­ly mem­bers. So, I want to pub­licly tell the Ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and his son and his daugh­ter, two bril­liant twins, bril­liant kids, I apol­o­gise. And that was hon­est­ly meant in the cut and thrust of pol­i­tics, but it’s wrong. I apol­o­gise.”

At­tempts to reach Je­re­mie to find out if he ac­cept­ed the apol­o­gy were un­suc­cess­ful.