DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has raised con­cerns about a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to al­leged whistle­blow­er Ak­il Ab­dul­lah.

He ques­tioned if it was an at­tempt by the Prime Min­is­ter to scare the “wit­ness”.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day morn­ing, Row­ley re­vealed he had al­ready tak­en ac­tion to­ward re­dress against Ab­dul­lah.

“I have tak­en some le­gal ac­tion. I have is­sued a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col to the so-called whistle­blow­er who has par­tic­i­pat­ed in the cre­ation of this mon­strous lie im­pli­cat­ing me in se­ri­ous crim­i­nal con­duct. I will take my cue from what the law per­mits and that is why I’m go­ing to sue the per­son who lied on me,” Row­ley said.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day by Guardian Me­dia, Ab­dul­lah, who claimed he was of­fered $270,000 to un­der­mine the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary and his ex­ec­u­tive, re­fused to re­spond to the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment..

When asked if he has re­ceived the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter, Ab­dul­lah said, “I have no com­ment.”

But speak­ing dur­ing an in­ter­view with mem­bers of the me­dia fol­low­ing the sign­ing of a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing with Habi­tat for Hu­man­i­ty at Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex in To­ba­go, Au­gus­tine ques­tioned if the Prime Min­is­ter was re­sort­ing to in­tim­ida­to­ry tac­tics.

“I will ask if this pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter is an at­tempt to scare the whistle­blow­er away. Is that an at­tempt at wit­ness tam­per­ing us­ing a le­gal mech­a­nism? I don’t know,” Au­gus­tine said.

The THA Chief Sec­re­tary al­so dou­bled down on claims that he was the sub­ject of a po­lit­i­cal witch-hunt, de­mand­ing the po­lice in­ves­ti­gate his al­le­ga­tions.

He added that his lawyers sent a let­ter to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher on Ju­ly 20 and again on Wednes­day but to date have not re­ceived a re­sponse.

“I don’t know any thief who does say they thief. I don’t know any mur­der­er that says, ‘I am guilty’, and there­fore those who are ac­cused or who it was al­leged did wrong things in terms of us­ing State agen­cies to en­act po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion, they can’t clear them­selves by say­ing ‘I am not guilty’. It re­quires an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter,” he said.

On Ju­ly 20, the Prime Min­is­ter host­ed a press con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann’s where he re­vealed that he in­struct­ed At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, to seek le­gal ad­vice on what ac­tion could be tak­en.

This was one day af­ter Au­gus­tine played a record­ing at a spe­cial ple­nary sit­ting of the as­sem­bly which de­pict­ed Ab­dul­lah mak­ing cer­tain al­le­ga­tions against Dr Row­ley, the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and oth­er in­di­vid­u­als.

In the clip, Ab­dul­lah claimed he was bribed to top­ple the THA and al­leged that he al­ready re­ceived $70,000. Au­gus­tine told the as­sem­bly this was linked to the po­lice raids that saw war­rants ex­e­cut­ed at his home and that of oth­er THA of­fi­cials.

The THA Chief Sec­re­tary is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed in light of a record­ing be­tween him­self and an­oth­er ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber that went vi­ral. The duo was pur­port­ed­ly dis­cussing a plan to use State funds to hire in­di­vid­u­als to spread pro­pa­gan­da.

Dr Row­ley be­lieved that Au­gus­tine at­tempt­ed to use the cov­er of the as­sem­bly to en­gage in wit­ness tam­per­ing and shift at­ten­tion from his own le­gal trou­bles.

Since the in­ci­dent went pub­lic, Ab­dul­lah, who is said to be a mem­ber of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots, al­leged that gun­men tried to kill him last Sun­day night.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has since called for him to be placed in wit­ness pro­tec­tion.