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.