Chester Sam­bra­no

An­oth­er day and yet an­oth­er twist in what is quick­ly be­com­ing the chron­i­cles of Port- of Spain South MP Mar­lene Mc Don­ald.

In the lat­est de­vel­op­ment Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith has rub­bished any cred­i­bil­i­ty in rev­e­la­tions that one of his of­fi­cers leaked plans to ar­rest the then Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter to Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar.

The dis­clo­sure was made by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in the Par­lia­ment on Mon­day evening dur­ing de­bate on the Firearms (Amend­ment) Bill 2019.

He put on the Hansard record that Per­sad-Bisses­sar tipped off Mc Don­ald about her im­pend­ing ar­rest.

“I didn’t know Mar­lene Mc Don­ald was go­ing to get ar­rest­ed but one month be­fore she was ar­rest­ed the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion could have called her to her of­fice and tell her she was go­ing to be ar­rest­ed,” the Prime Min­is­ter told Par­lia­ment.

But in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day Grif­fith ex­pressed a de­gree of con­vic­tion that if there is any truth to what Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­port­ed­ly said to Mc Don­ald then she got the in­for­ma­tion from “a very good for­tune teller”, “be­cause sev­er­al weeks be­fore there was ab­solute­ly noth­ing in any form of fash­ion that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice were sure that a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment was go­ing to be ar­rest­ed.”

Grif­fith said pri­or to the de­ci­sion to ar­rest Mc Don­ald there were con­sul­ta­tions with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions as well as a Queen’s Coun­sel.

He said up to three days be­fore the ar­rest no of­fi­cer, him­self in­clud­ed, knew of the in­tend­ed ac­tion.

“It is ab­solute­ly im­pos­si­ble that any­one could of made such a state­ment and be ac­cu­rate about it be­cause sev­er­al weeks be­fore there was noth­ing re­mote­ly close to go­ing ahead to con­firm any MP was to be ar­rest­ed.”

The Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er al­so said that he has con­duct­ed an in­ter­nal probe and was as­sured by his of­fi­cers that no such breach oc­curred. He as­sert­ed that at this time and with the lit­tle in­for­ma­tion avail­able it is the most he could do.

“The most that we could do is for us to speak to the rel­e­vant heads of the units which were in­volved in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion to ver­i­fy if there was any leak that took place and if they had any in­for­ma­tion per­tain­ing to such and at this time there is no such in­for­ma­tion that we have to ver­i­fy that this ac­tu­al­ly took place.”

How­ev­er, Grif­fith said that if any politi­cian has in­for­ma­tion to share, he is will­ing to lis­ten and if any of­fi­cer is found to have com­mit­ted the of­fence the rel­e­vant dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion will be tak­en.

Since the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment Per­sad-BIsses­sar has not made any pub­lic state­ments on the mat­ter.

But Mc Don­ald has giv­en her ver­sion of events to the me­dia.

She told Guardian Me­dia that she has a his­to­ry with the Op­po­si­tion Leader as well as Ch­agua­nas West MP Gan­ga Singh. She ex­plained that they went to law school to­geth­er and they have a lot of re­spect for each oth­er.

The Port- of- Spain South MP said that when Per­sad Bisses­sar spoke to her she knew it was com­ing from “high up.”

She said she had “no doubt” in her mind that the Op­po­si­tion Leader was speak­ing the truth and she had no rea­son to doubt her.

Mc Don­ald added that fol­low­ing the con­ver­sa­tion she dis­cussed the mat­ter with At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young.

On Au­gust 7, Of­fi­cers of the Fraud Squad swooped down on Mc­Don­ald’s home at Val­ley View, Mara-cas, St Joseph, where they ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant and took away sev­er­al items.

This was in con­nec­tion with six-year-old in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged si­phon­ing of over $1 mil­lion from a gov­ern­ment min­istry to three or­gan­i­sa­tions linked to fam­i­ly and friends of the then Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra-tion and her hus­band.

Four days lat­er, Mc Don­ald was charged with sev­en crim­i­nal charges, in­clud­ing mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing.

Mc Don­ald, her long-time com­pan­ion Michael Carew, Wayne An­tho­ny, Vic­tor McEachrane and Edgar Zepher­ine have ap­peared be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court to an­swer a to­tal of 49 charges.