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Hinds, Moonilal spar over FUL recommendation in JSC

by

#meta[ag-author]
Sharlene Rampersad
20221109105455
20221109
Members of the Joint Select Committee on National Security, from left, Jayanti Lutchmedial, Dr Roodal Moonilal and Ayanna Webster-Roy listen to National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds, right, during the meeting yesterday.

Members of the Joint Select Committee on National Security, from left, Jayanti Lutchmedial, Dr Roodal Moonilal and Ayanna Webster-Roy listen to National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds, right, during the meeting yesterday.

OFFICE OF THE PARLIAMENT

SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith is ac­cus­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds and act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob of be­ing hyp­ocrites.

His ac­cu­sa­tion came yes­ter­day in re­sponse to Hinds’ deny­ing that he ever rec­om­mend­ed be grant­ed a Firearm Users Li­cence (FUL) dur­ing a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC).

Dur­ing the meet­ing, Hinds was asked by com­mit­tee mem­ber Dr Roodal Mooni­lal whether the Prime Min­is­ter, Min­is­ters and MPs should be barred from rec­om­mend­ing in­di­vid­u­als for FULs.

Mooni­lal’s state­ments were hot­ly re­fut­ed and he even­tu­al­ly chose to move on from the ques­tion. How­ev­er, be­fore the meet­ing end­ed, Mooni­lal again raised the ques­tion, this time telling Hinds, “Ear­li­er, I asked the ques­tion on the pol­i­cy is­sue on whether Min­is­ters ought to be rec­om­mend­ing per­sons for FUL. You in­di­cat­ed then you had no rec­ol­lec­tion of rec­om­mend­ing per­sons. Min­is­ter, I am invit­ing you to re­flect on that and cor­rect your­self.”

Hinds in­ter­ject­ed al­though Mooni­lal com­plained he had not been al­lowed to com­plete his ques­tion.

“The mem­ber is now re­hash­ing some­thing that went ear­li­er when I was not able to com­plete my state­ment. The mem­ber is now say­ing con­clu­sive­ly that I said I did not rec­om­mend any­one for a firearm and then the oth­er part of the ques­tion is should Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters be al­lowed, he is rais­ing it,” Hinds said.

Mooni­lal in­ter­ject­ed, say­ing he was invit­ing Hinds to col­lect him­self.

But Hinds con­tin­ued, say­ing, “I don’t have to cor­rect my­self… I am say­ing I have no re­call of rec­om­mend­ing any­body for any firearm and I would like to hear what he has to say.”

Tem­pers con­tin­ued to flare as Mooni­lal said, “Min­is­ter, on a more re­laxed re­flec­tion, you rec­om­mend­ed ten per­sons for firearms to the then Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and I leave it at that.”

JSC chair­man Kei­th Scot­land in­ter­vened, say­ing the ques­tion had been an­swered but Hinds in­ter­ject­ed again.

“Mr Chair­man, I want the record to read I made no rec­om­men­da­tion to any com­mis­sion­er for any­body for any firearm, I can ex­plain in greater de­tail but it would be risky and fool­ish and stu­pid and I will not fol­low that trend,” Hinds said.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia af­ter the meet­ing, Mooni­lal said he took is­sue with Hinds’ state­ments, as he claimed to have been giv­en ev­i­dence Hinds had sent mes­sages to for­mer CoP Grif­fith ask­ing about FULs for mem­bers of his se­cu­ri­ty de­tail.

Guardian Me­dia was sent screen­shots be­tween one per­son whose con­tact was saved as “Hinds Fits­ger­ald 1” and an un­named per­son.

One of the mes­sages from the con­tact saved as “Hinds Fits­ger­ald 1” states: “Com­mis­sion­er, I have a cou­ple FUL ap­pli­ca­tions for my se­cu­ri­ty de­tail of sol­diers. There is no ob­jec­tion from their War­rant and the TTDF. I have watched them now for two years and I am sat­is­fied that they are fit and wor­thy. They ro­tate with the CJ’s de­tail as well. Please give them your most fa­vor­able con­sid­er­a­tion. Should I send them di­rect­ly to you? Thanks you.”

In re­sponse, the un­named per­son re­sponds, “Sir. Yeah.” and “Just what­sapp full name with ref­er­ence num­ber.”

Sev­er­al of the mes­sages were blacked out.

When asked about the source of the screen­shots, Mooni­lal de­clined to an­swer.

“It’s just as if I asked you to state your source, you wouldn’t do that, would you?” he said.

He said through­out his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, he had made rec­om­men­da­tions for about 25 peo­ple to get their FULs.

“It’s the same way I would rec­om­mend peo­ple on the forms to get pass­ports, as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, peo­ple ask you and you rec­om­mend based on peo­ple’s needs. My is­sue is not that he (Hinds) made rec­om­men­da­tions, it is that he has lied to a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment,” Mooni­lal said.

He said he was giv­ing the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter un­til noon to­day to apol­o­gise to the Par­lia­ment and to cor­rect the record.

These screen­shots were sent to Hinds by What­sApp last night and Guardian Me­dia asked the Min­is­ter to con­firm or de­ny whether he had sent those mes­sages. He did not re­spond.

Grif­fith weighs in

Al­so weigh­ing in last night, Grif­fith ac­cused Hinds of be­ing a hyp­ocrite.

“The hypocrisy by the three mouse-ke­teers of Kei­th Row­ley, Fitzger­ald Hinds and Mc Don­ald Ja­cob, it is mind-bog­gling. These three in­di­vid­u­als give the im­pres­sion that rec­om­mend­ing per­sons for firearms or law-abid­ing cit­i­zens ac­quir­ing firearms is the worst thing,” Grif­fith said.

But he said all three have rec­om­mend­ed ap­pli­cants in the past.

“These three in­di­vid­u­als can­not in any way, say that they were not in­stru­men­tal or be­ing a part of try­ing to as­sist per­sons, many per­sons in ac­quir­ing firearms. And noth­ing is wrong with that,” Grif­fith said.

He said he had no is­sues with those rec­om­men­da­tions, as it would be up to the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to do “due dili­gence” to de­ter­mine whether an ap­pli­cant would qual­i­fy for a FUL.

“But the hypocrisy is that it is okay for you to make lots of rec­om­men­da­tions for your close friends and the rich and fa­mous but then when the law-abid­ing cit­i­zen, some­times the most hum­ble farmer, a per­son who is in­volved in try­ing to see about his small busi­ness…it be­comes an is­sue. It shows hypocrisy at its fullest,” Grif­fith said.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions on crime in the Sen­ate on Tues­day, Hinds said legal­ly is­sued firearms have now been iden­ti­fied as an is­sue, with 108 re­port­ed­ly used in crim­i­nal of­fences. Yes­ter­day, he clar­i­fied that those of­fences ranged from los­ing a firearm and a firearm be­ing stolen and the da­ta was from 2017 to 2021. How­ev­er, he did not re­tract his ear­li­er state­ment that legal­ly is­sued guns were a con­cern to the po­lice.


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