The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is call­ing on At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al Rawi to clear the air on an al­leged se­cret deal to in­dem­ni­fy Vin­cent Nel­son from crim­i­nal and pros­e­cu­tion in ex­change for in­for­ma­tion that could fur­ther the pros­e­cu­tion against for­mer AG Anand Ram­lo­gan and for­mer UNC Sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen. 

The mat­ter was raised by UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark dur­ing an op­po­si­tion press con­fer­ence on Sun­day. 

“This is crim­i­nal be­hav­iour on the part of our At­tor­ney Gen­er­al if this turns out to be true,” he said.

“Has the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al su­per­seded and tak­en over the role of the po­lice? Has the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al su­per­seded and tak­en over the role and func­tions of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions?” he asked.

The in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment, signed by Al Rawi, was done so on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment of T&T which is why Sen­a­tor Mark ques­tioned if the Prime Min­is­ter was aware of the deal. 

Sen­a­tor Mark, how­ev­er, said he is not jump­ing to con­clu­sions as yet and is wait­ing on AG Al Rawi to come forth and give the coun­try an ex­pla­na­tion. 

“I am not yet ready to ac­cuse you, at the mo­ment, for any mis­deeds. I want you to au­then­ti­cate, I want you to ver­i­fy this doc­u­ment,” he said. 

Sen­a­tor Mark al­so called on the par­ties in­volved in the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice se­lec­tion process to come clean about the pub­lic of­fi­cial who al­leged­ly at­tend­ed a meet­ing with then chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion Bliss Seep­er­sad and Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes.

“These are very very crit­i­cal ques­tions that the coun­try is ask­ing,” he said, “be­cause trust and con­fi­dence is wan­ing and when you de­stroy in­sti­tu­tions’ laws and val­ues, you make the ba­sis for chaos, an­ar­chy and con­fu­sion.”

—Rishard Khan