AG: More than pepper spray coming to protect women

ATTORNEY General Faris Al-Rawi said Government is coming with more than just pepper spray legislation to combat crime in TT.

Responding to a statement from Chaguanas East MP Vandana Mohit about the legislation, Al-Rawi said on Saturday, "I congratulate her for finding her voice finally on the issue of protection of women's rights."

"It's unfortunate that she appears to have not paid attention to what happens in Parliament."

Al-Rawi recalled that when the Prime Minister was being questioned about pepper spray legislation by Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal, who sits to Mohit's immediate left in the House of Representatives, Dr Rowley confirmed that he (Al-Rawi) took the matter to Cabinet on Thursday and the issue goes before the Cabinet's finance and general purposes committee on Monday.

Al-Rawi added, "It will be coming to Parliament immediately thereafter. So we are well on track."

"I am very pleased to be the AG who will tidy up that issue and it will come immediately upon the matter being settled by the finance and general purposes committee (of Cabinet) on Monday."

On Mohit's criticism of his presence at a candlelight vigil for murder victim Adeina Alleyne in Embacadere, San Fernando, on Thursday, Al-Rawi said, "Let me remind Ms Mohit that I am the Member of Parliament for San Fernando West."

He said "the Bronx" where the murder occurred "is a community that nobody in the UNC knows, never visited it, they have no clue as to what it looks like, they don't know the people who live there."

"Unlike the UNC, that is a very cherished and wonderful area in my constituency and I have a very close relationship with the people who live there." Alleyne was murdered by her husband Dwight Waldrop at their Embacadere home on Tuesday before he killed himself.

Al-Rawi continued, "In the case of the very tragic murder-suicide, I can tell you that I literally know where both of these people lived and their families and who lives next door." He said he could confirm that "many people in the community and elsewhere encouraged the murder victim Adeina to step away from that relationship and to stop going back.

"She had, in fact, stepped away from the relationship and on that day, unfortunately, went back and murderous intent was committed. No amount of policing could solve that on a constant basis." He said the vigil held on Thursday was "a very spontaneous and prayerful event that was held in the precincts of the Bronx and we lit candles."

Al-Rawi pointed out, "This was not a call for vigils or a national march. This is a community in prayer and in reflection."

He added it was not staged or a political event. "I am a member of that community as well. The Bronx is literally down the road from where I grew up."

He hoped Mohit would support "the very far-reaching laws that I intend to bring to the Parliament." Al-Rawi said these include additional amendments to the Sexual Offences Act, Evidence Act (concerning witness anonymity evidence) Trafficking in Persons Act, Computer Misuse Act."

"We intend to return with whistle blowing legislation. All of these things are matters which the UNC has not supported. We intend to list from the cybercrime package that we had, into the Sexual Offences Act, to criminalise things like breach of confidence of intimate partners, where one partner leaks the images of another partner, etcetera," he said.