Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan is ad­vis­ing to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith not to be mis­led by for­eign in­ves­ti­ga­tors from the UK firm Ed­monds and Mar­shall Mc Ma­hon (EMM) rel­a­tive to the probe in­to the Es­tate Man­age­ment and De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (EM­BD).

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Khan said it ap­peared that Kate Mc Ma­han, EMM, is ad­vis­ing the Grif­fith to cir­cum­vent the in­put and ad­vice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions in or­der to ob­tain search war­rants to search the premis­es of Dr Roodal Mooni­lal be­fore the date of the gen­er­al elec­tion.

Khan said, “Mr Com­mis­sion­er some 39 years ago the privy coun­cil via Thomas V. A.G. of Trinidad and To­ba­go 32 WIR 375 Lord Diplock warned us that the armed po­lice force with the po­ten­tial­i­ty for ha­rass­ment that such a force poss­es would be con­vert­ed in­to what in ef­fect might func­tion as pri­vate army of the po­lit­i­cal par­ty that is in gov­ern­ment. Lord Diplock stat­ed that the Con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go in­su­late mem­bers of the po­lice ser­vice from po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence ex­er­cised di­rect­ly up­on them by the Gov­ern­ment of the day.

Thus it should be not­ed that the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions is the prin­ci­pal pub­lic pros­e­cu­tion au­thor­i­ty for Trinidad and To­ba­go and pros­e­cu­tion means all as­pects of a crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion and in­cludes pre-charge ad­vice, the de­ci­sion to pros­e­cute, the de­ci­sion of pro­ceed­ings, an­cil­lary to a pros­e­cu­tion.”

Khan said the The func­tions of the DPP and the po­lice and oth­er in­ves­ti­ga­tors are sep­a­rate and dis­tinct. The DPP, he added, de­cides if a pros­e­cu­tion should be pur­sued and if so, on what terms.

Khan said the DPP acts in­de­pen­dent­ly of those re­spon­si­ble for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion while the DPP may con­sid­er the views of the in­ves­ti­ga­tor where ap­pro­pri­ate, in the end it is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the DPP to de­cide whether or not to pro­ceed.

“I re­spect­ful­ly wish to point out to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice that you must recog­nise un­der the doc­trine of the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers that the DPP re­mains sole­ly re­spon­si­ble for the tak­ing of all pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al de­ci­sions and the po­lice re­main sole­ly re­spon­si­ble for the con­duct of in­ves­ti­ga­tions,” Khan said.

He added: “Ms. Kate Mc Ma­hon, of the U.K. firm (EMM), so far has re­ceived $50 mil­lion from the Gov­ern­ment via the Of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and in or­der to jus­ti­fy that fee and re­new­al of their pri­vate con­tract has usurped the func­tion of the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and is now open­ly telling you not to seek the ad­vice of the DPP in or­der to ob­tain search war­rants and even war­rants of ar­rest.”

Khan told Grif­fith that rea­son­able grounds to sus­pect crim­i­nal be­hav­iour is not pri­ma fa­cie ev­i­dence to is­sue war­rants of ar­rest for the sus­pect­ed bom­mis­sion of a crim­i­nal of­fence.

On Ju­ly 19, a Sun­day Guardian re­port re­vealed that ar­rests were im­mi­nent in the $549 mil­lion crim­i­nal EM­BD case, with a promi­nent politi­cian al­leged­kly close­ly linked to the mat­ter.

Mc Ma­hon in­formed the TTPS last Fri­day that her firm, which has been as­sist­ing the Po­lice Ser­vice with the ma­jor probes, had in­ten­si­fied their com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the DPP in “re­la­tion to the cas­es we are seek­ing to charge.”

She said there were three cas­es now be­ing ac­tive­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed —(EM­BD, Life­s­port and EF­CL— and “two which are cur­rent­ly be­ing as­sessed for charge by the DPP and the third which is at an ad­vanced stage and has war­rants to be ex­e­cut­ed which will, we be­lieve, re­veal mon­ey laun­der­ing and fund­ing for the 2015 elec­tion via gov­ern­ment con­tract fees.”