As Oropouche MP, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal pre­pares for screen­ing to­day. Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­scribed the lat­est al­le­ga­tions against him in the Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (EM­BD) mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar car­tel law­suit as a “po­lit­i­cal witch-hunt” and a waste of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia af­ter at­tend­ing the fu­ner­al of for­mer chair­man Prem­c­hand Sookoo, Per­sad-Bisses­sar threw her sup­port be­hind Dr Mooni­lal, say­ing the lat­est al­le­ga­tions were “fab­ri­cat­ed,” and will not de­bar him from fac­ing the par­ty’s screen­ing com­mit­tee to­day.

“I am of the view that they con­tin­ue to fab­ri­cate and make up as they go along. What they have put in the case has been rub­bished, and now they are scram­bling to find some­thing else, which is to­tal non­sense,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

The lat­est claims were filed on Wednes­day by the EM­BD in the law­suit, which in­volves Mooni­lal, con­trac­tors, and EM­BD ex­ec­u­tives—ten years af­ter the ini­tial mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar car­tel claim was brought to court.

Dis­miss­ing the al­le­ga­tions yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Where in the world do you hear of a shad­ow di­rec­tor? It’s just fab­ri­ca­tion. At the end of the day, they keep mak­ing al­le­ga­tions, won’t fin­ish the case, and will drag it out un­til af­ter the elec­tions. They have no plans, no de­liv­ery, no lega­cy.”

Mooni­lal has been at the cen­tre of cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions in the case since 2015, af­ter the PNM took of­fice.

She added that the par­ty’s screen­ing com­mit­tee will de­cide Mooni­lal’s po­lit­i­cal fu­ture, but per­son­al­ly, she saw no case against him.

“I am a lawyer, and they have no ev­i­dence or case against Dr Mooni­lal,” she said.

Mean­while, Mooni­lal com­pared his sit­u­a­tion to that of the Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

“Trump has faced more, and he is tri­umphant. As my Swa­mi said, I will be vic­to­ri­ous, but I will have to first walk through fire,” Mooni­lal said.

He called the le­gal bat­tle a “bil­lion-dol­lar scan­dal,” claim­ing that funds had been mis­used to tar­get op­po­si­tion fig­ures.

“For over ten years, they have been in civ­il courts cast­ing as­per­sions on for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, no­tably my­self, and Anil Roberts.

“The (T&T) Guardian it­self re­port­ed that a bil­lion dol­lars has been spent on what is the most ex­pen­sive po­lit­i­cal witch-hunt in the his­to­ry of the Caribbean. They’ve used for­eign and lo­cal po­lice, pri­vate in­ves­ti­ga­tors, and foren­sic ac­coun­tants to trump up charges against me.”

He dis­missed the lat­est claims that he was a “shad­ow di­rec­tor” of the EM­BD while serv­ing as line min­is­ter.

“How can I be a line min­is­ter and a di­rec­tor at the same time? If I was a di­rec­tor, then I should be ask­ing the EM­BD for five years of di­rec­tor’s fees,” Mooni­lal said.

He al­so ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of “weapon­is­ing” the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice and the EM­BD to tar­get po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents.

“They have now found them­selves un­able to de­fend their ini­tial claims and have changed their al­le­ga­tions af­ter ten years. There is a statute of lim­i­ta­tions, and they can­not do that. They have lost their wick­et in the first set of al­le­ga­tions and have now come with a fab­ri­cat­ed, con­coct­ed, and con­vo­lut­ed case,” he said.