Jesse Ramdeo

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee, Is­rael Khan SC, has rub­bished Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s claim that he was a UNC ac­tivist.

Row­ley made the claim dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence on Mon­day, as he made an ar­gu­ment for why he was stick­ing with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s de­ci­sion to nom­i­nate Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo for the po­si­tion.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Khan said, “I wish to cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly de­ny that I am an ac­tivist for the UNC. That is a bla­tant un­truth. Al­so, I’m not a mem­ber of the UNC, I’ve nev­er can­vassed for the UNC. It is a fact that I sup­port Kam­la as the de fac­to leader of the UNC but I’m not a mem­ber of the UNC.”

Khan’s com­ment came even as sec­tors of so­ci­ety con­tin­ued to de­bate the is­sue of the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent be­com­ing taint­ed due to the per­ceived al­le­giances of both can­di­dates, with both par­ties head­ing in­to the vote on Jan­u­ary 20 with their nom­i­nees.

Dur­ing Mon­day’s me­dia con­fer­ence, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley re­mained res­olute in Gov­ern­ment’s choice, al­though the UNC has la­belled Kan­ga­loo an agent of the PNM and a “yes woman.”

In de­fend­ing Gov­ern­ment’s nom­i­nee, Row­ley al­so cit­ed sec­tion 24 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which made pro­vi­sion for a sit­ting Sen­ate Pres­i­dent be­ing con­sid­ered and even qual­i­fy­ing to be elect­ed as the head of state.

But while Dr Row­ley al­so ques­tioned the im­par­tial­i­ty of the UNC’s choice, Khan main­tained he was no UNC mouth­piece.

How­ev­er, over a decade ago, Khan ac­tu­al­ly voiced sup­port for the PNM. In an ar­ti­cle pub­lished in the T&T Guardian on Ju­ly 15, 2007, Khan went on record in back­ing the then Patrick Man­ning-led PNM gov­ern­ment.

Jour­nal­ist Clevon Raphael had asked whether or not Khan had sold out to the PNM, to which Khan re­spond­ed,

“No, I have not sold out to the PNM, but at this point in time, I am a sup­port­er of the PNM and I sup­port the par­ty.”

Raphael fol­lowed up by ask­ing what had caused the change, since Khan, in 2003, had told him he had not gone PNM.

Khan stat­ed, “Well, I am sat­is­fied the present lead­er­ship of the PNM is mak­ing a great ef­fort to in­clude every na­tion­al in the par­ty.”

Fast-for­ward to Mon­day’s me­dia con­fer­ence, where the PNM’s cur­rent leader, Dr Row­ley, took aim at Khan for what he said has been his (Khan’s) out­spo­ken pub­lic abuse against him.

How­ev­er, Khan yes­ter­day said he was not re­pent­ing and cit­ed sev­er­al in­ci­dents where he claimed Dr Row­ley need­ed to be rep­ri­mand­ed.

“Al­so, in re­la­tion to in­sult­ing or abus­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, he put him­self in that po­si­tion and now pre­tend­ing to be the vic­tim, when he called lawyers bot­tom feed­ers on one oc­ca­sion when they say they claim­ing costs, I put him in his place and said he is a rogue and vagabond.”

He added, “Al­so, when he re­ferred to In­shan Ish­mael and he told him to ‘kiss my a**’, I told him it is un­be­com­ing of a Prime Min­is­ter to do such a thing. It is the first time in the Com­mon­wealth and he does not de­serve to be Prime Min­is­ter, that he is an im­poster, he is a char­la­tan and he dress­ing in Prime Min­is­ter’s robes.”

Khan, how­ev­er, main­tained he has spo­ken out against lead­ers, past and present, for their al­leged trans­gres­sions.

Just last year, the Se­nior Coun­sel wrote a let­ter to Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, con­demn­ing her for what he said was her base­less at­tack on lawyers. Per­sad-Bisses­sar had ac­cused se­nior at­tor­neys of “singing for their sup­per” by vot­ing against a no-con­fi­dence mo­tion against At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour SC.

In the let­ter, Khan called on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­turn her ti­tle of Se­nior Coun­sel for what he de­scribed as an at­tack on her le­gal col­leagues.

Khan, while serv­ing as the Di­rec­tor of the Le­gal Aid and Ad­vi­so­ry Au­thor­i­ty, al­so dis­patched a writ­ten cor­re­spon­dence to for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning in 2002, reg­is­ter­ing a com­plaint against then Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Glen­da More­an-Phillip for wear­ing the PNM’s par­ty sym­bol while con­duct­ing the na­tion’s busi­ness in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

In the let­ter, Khan stat­ed, “A PNM Prime Min­is­ter is the na­tion’s Prime Min­is­ter and so too is the Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs. Al­so, the Le­gal Aid and Ad­vi­so­ry Au­thor­i­ty serves the en­tire na­tion and thus un­der my watch, I can­not in good con­science en­cour­age and or sup­port the Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs to politi­cise the Le­gal Aid and Au­thor­i­ty in her ca­pac­i­ty as Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs re­spon­si­ble for the Le­gal Aid and Ad­vi­so­ry Au­thor­i­ty via vis pol­i­cy di­rec­tion.”

Then Prime Min­is­ter Man­ning ac­knowl­edged the let­ter and not­ed, “Your ex­pressed state­ment that you pon­dered for two weeks be­fore send­ing the let­ter may sug­gest that the two sides of the ar­gu­ment have strong va­lid­i­ty.”

Mean­while, Khan, who is al­so the pres­i­dent of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion, said when he was ap­proached and con­sult­ed by the UNC on the Pres­i­dent’s post, he act­ed eth­i­cal­ly.

“There is a snow­ball of a chance that any­body com­ing out­side the PNM go­ing to be elect­ed so they say it is go­ing to be a prin­ci­pled po­si­tion and I left it like that and as we came clos­er, oth­er peo­ple ap­proached.”