ATTORNEY General Faris Al-Rawi said he is not surprised at attempts by certain people to derail ongoing investigations into serious several corruption matters, under the guise of transparency. Al-Rawi made this comment at a virtual news conference on Tuesday as he rejected claims from UNC MP Saddam Hosein and made by the Trinidad Express that he was not being transparency about legal fees paid to local and foreign attorneys under the PNM between 2015 to now.
"I can say specifically that there is a great amount of interest people asking of the Attorney General what appears to be innocuous questions but which can have disastrous consequences." Al-Rawi said he has received advice from both the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and Fyard Hosein SC, lead attorney for his office on certain matters, about premature disclosure
He said, "Premature disclosure of these sensitive matters, will certainly cause collapse of prosecution, not only in this jurisdiction but in other jurisdictions." Al-Rawi said. Referring to questions posed by Hosein during Monday's virtual meeting of the Standing Finance Committee of the House of Representatives on legal fees paid to attorneys and details of their respective cases, Al-Rawi said Hosein has some of that information through a freedom of information (FOI) request from attorney Samantha Singh-Poona, who was one of Hosein's election agents in last August's general election.
He said Express editor-in-chief Omatie Lyder received the same information through a seperate FOI request. "Both were provided with an ongoing list of attorneys at law and entities retained by the Office of the AG. That list also includes a breakdown of a year by year expenditure."
Al-Rawi found it disengenuous for Hosein to be making the allegations he had, when he knows they are baseless. "We have not provided certain information and we will not yet be able to provide certain information in respect of certain sensitive matters."
He also said the FOI responses provided to Hosein and Lyder were designed in such a way "that an assiduous inquirer ought not to understand what is being said." Without doing into specifics, Al-Rawi referred to some of the sensitive matters in question.
He said one was a very large scale international investigation that involves cross-jurisdictional bribery claims, here in Trinidad and Tobago. "That matter is at a very advanced stage of prosecution in an non-commonwealth country. I am embargoed from disclosing the particulars around those investigations and also from revealing invoices etc which will detail the steps taken in court and also the persons who are conducting investigations."
A second matter involved civil proceedings into the Piarco Airport scandal. Al-Rawi said that matter began in 2004 in the United States but was "put to bed in the period 2010 to 2015 where no work was conducted on the matter." He said there was a US$105 claim in that matter under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
