Gail Alexan­der

Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard does not know of 10 new at­tor­neys who have re­port­ed­ly been hired for the Of­fice of the DPP and no such at­tor­neys have re­port­ed there as yet.

Gas­pard con­firmed this briefly yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing a re­port in a news­pa­per that amid the is­sues with Gov­ern­ment - fol­low­ing the DPP’s ex­pressed con­cerns about lack of staffing - 10 at­tor­neys have been hired for his de­part­ment.

Re­spond­ing to T&T Guardian’s queries on this, Gas­pard said, “Ten new at­tor­neys hired? I don’t know about that. No such at­tor­neys have re­port­ed here as yet. I can’t say much more about that.”

Gas­pard’s com­ment came ahead of to­day’s meet­ing which At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour who has called on Gas­pard to dis­cuss the staff short­age, which af­fects the DPP Of­fice’s abil­i­ty to prop­er­ly pros­e­cute cas­es, and ac­com­mo­da­tion is­sues.

The DPP’s Of­fice on­ly has 58 pros­e­cu­tors when it re­quires 129 and is still lo­cat­ed at Win­sure Build­ing de­spite Gov­ern­ment rent­ing a Park Street build­ing for it since 2019.

The DPP’s Of­fice, while an in­de­pen­dent of­fice, does not have its own bud­get and fi­nan­cial is­sues are un­der the AG’s Min­istry.

Ar­mour didn’t re­ply to queries yes­ter­day on the re­port­ed 10 new at­tor­neys for the DPP’s Of­fice.

Last Sat­ur­day, Ar­mour, re­spond­ing to queries on the lack of re­sources for the DPP, had said there were no po­lit­i­cal ben­e­fits in the Gov­ern­ment un­der-re­sourc­ing the DPP and “that is an un­sat­is­fac­to­ry ex­pla­na­tion for the un­der­per­for­mance of the DPP.”

Amour said oth­er crit­i­cal arms of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem were al­so op­er­at­ing be­low ca­pac­i­ty, “yet far more ef­fec­tive­ly” and there was need to “crit­i­cal­ly ex­am­ine what are the sys­tem­at­ic is­sues ham­per­ing” the per­for­mance of the DPP’s Of­fice.

Gas­pard’s com­ments came in the wake of the dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of the Pi­ar­co Air­port Three case against for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, his wife Oma, for­mer min­is­ter Car­los John and busi­ness­man Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh last week.

The DPP has drawn at­ten­tion to staff short­ages for sev­er­al years, in­clud­ing at Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee meet­ings (2016/17). How­ev­er, for­mer AG Faris Al-Rawi, in 2019, claimed the lag in fill­ing va­can­cies arose from the DPP’s in­ac­tion in giv­ing rec­om­men­da­tions.

Af­ter Gas­pard’s con­cerns last Tues­day, the sit­u­a­tion was com­pound­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s sub­se­quent state­ments at a PNM meet­ing, where he coun­tered that Gov­ern­ment has been rent­ing a build­ing for the DPP’s Of­fice for the past three years but it’s re­mained un­oc­cu­pied al­though mil­lions in rent had been paid.

The build­ing, on east­ern Park Street, is ex­ten­sive­ly glass.

Row­ley said Spe­cial Branch had rec­om­mend­ed bul­let-proof glass which was in­stalled, then a wall was al­so rec­om­mend­ed un­til the land­lord halt­ed fur­ther “in­ter­fer­ence with his build­ing.”

Row­ley said there was a three-year “con­tract” for the build­ing. The month­ly rent is re­port­ed­ly $600,000 - cost­ing $21m since han­dover in 2019, plus a $24m cost for Nid­co to retro­fit.

Yes­ter­day, Gov­ern­ment sources con­firmed the build­ing’s three-year lease had end­ed and there’s now a month-to-month arrange­ment.

Nei­ther Row­ley nor Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds re­spond­ed to queries on their views/hopes for to­day’s AG/DPP meet­ing.

Hinds has said two more courts will come on stream soon for hu­man traf­fick­ing.

Sources said the is­sue of whether the Park Street build­ing is re­tained and staffing for the DPP are “all in the AG’s hands.”

“Gov­ern­ment out­fit­ted the build­ing ful­ly in ac­cor­dance with the DPP’s de­signs, paid rent for three years and bul­let-proofed the build­ing, sure­ly he can shift around his of­fice floors.”

On queries about safe­ty in the lo­ca­tion, with close prox­im­i­ty to East PoS hotspots heights and re­lat­ed fac­tors, sources said the Win­sure build­ing isn’t bul­let- proof ei­ther. They claimed the DPP hadn’t made rec­om­men­da­tions for pro­mo­tions, so job ap­praisals are ab­sent.

Ar­mour will be speak­ing sub­se­quent­ly in the week. Af­ter Row­ley spoke, Gas­pard said he’d seek ad­vice be­fore re­spond­ing.

The Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion (which was to meet yes­ter­day on the is­sue) and Law As­so­ci­a­tion mem­bers are mon­i­tor­ing the is­sue be­fore com­ment­ing, mem­bers of each said.

Re­quest for Gas­pard at JSC to­day

UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal had said the Park Street build­ing’s own­ers had ap­proached the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment with an of­fer to rent and the gov­ern­ment had of­fered it to the DPP. Safe­ty is­sues were made known then al­so.

Up to 2015, when the PP left of­fice, no de­ci­sion was made to place the DPP there, Mooni­lal added.

Yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal said he and UNC Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al will raise the need for the DPP to speak at an­oth­er meet­ing of Par­lia­ment’s Joint Se­lect com­mit­tee on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. They’ll do that at to­day’s JSC meet­ing on the T&T De­fence Force.