Kamla calls on US authorities: Investigate AG for felony

OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has called on the US authorities to investigate whether AG Reginald Armour committed the felony of perjury in his declaration before the Miami Court in matters related to the Piarco Airport corruption case.

From a United National Congress (UNC) platform on Monday night, Persad-Bissessar said under the penalty of perjury, since he signed an affidavit to tell the truth, lying under oath is a crime punishable by imprisonment or fines.

Given the serious nature of these offences, she repeated the call for Armour to step down or be fired, telling supporters, he could not escape unscathed.

Neither can he hide behind the defence that he has appealed the matter, she argued.

“While that is an important issue,” Persad-Bissessar said, “that is not the main issue, as the appeal could go either way on the substantive law.

“He is hiding behind this 'matter' thing, where the matter is appealed and he has taken an oath of silence.

"I am taking no oath of silence, and I expose you and call you out.”

She said attempts by the Prime Minister and Government to defend themselves in the face of what she called blatant law-breaking and criminality, or to justify the AG's behaviour, was the lowest level to which Government would sink.

Armour and the US firm Sequor Law, hired by the government in 2004, were disqualified from taking part in the US multi-million-dollar civil forfeiture case against former government minister Brian Kuei Tung and others in the Piarco Airport corruption case.

Armour acted as defendant for Kuei Tung and his partner Renee Pierre in the local magistrates court on criminal matters related to the Piarco Airport case for five years. He made legal and oral submissions in the matter which he signed off as Reginald Armour, SC.

In his affidavit to the US court he said he acted merely as junior counsel and note-taker.

By virtue of being appointed AG, he has become the prosecutor for Trinidad and Tobago in the substantive case.

Persad-Bissessar reminded him it was a breach of the code of ethics of the legal profession to be both defendant and prosecutor in a matter, as he would have been privy to information regarding his former client’s defence.

She questioned why he waited for the defendants to bring his representation in their case to the attention of the court, through the motion to disqualify him, instead of raising it himself.

His inability now to represent TT in the Miami court, Persad-Bissessar said, and the appointment of former AG Faris Al-Rawi to act as “client representative,” has plunged this country into a constitutional crisis.

When the question about the legal authority giving rise to the appointment of Al-Rawi was posed to acting Prime Minister Colm Imbert in Parliament on Monday, he cited sections 76, 78 and 79 of the Constitution.

But Persad-Bissessar said that responsibility was not gazetted according to the sections cited. She said when Al-Rawi was assigned the portfolio of Minister of Rural Development and Local Government and Armour the full portfolio of Attorney General and Ministry of Legal Affairs, those portfolios were published in the Gazette.

“For Mr Al-Rawi to act legally in the Miami matter, he must be given the responsibility of AG, according to our Constitution.

“So we have a constitutional conundrum. You take it away from Al-Rawi (the post of AG), and what you want to do is give it back to him.

“This is how this Government operates, by vaps. They do not do due diligence.”

She called on Imbert to show where the reallocation or reassignment of the AG’s portfolio was made to give Al-Rawi power and legal authority to manage these proceedings.

Even if that was done, she said, the Prime Minister would have been acting illegally, “because the Constitution says all civil proceedings must be in the name of the AG. It does not say in the name of another minister who gets part of that portfolio.

“If there is no reassignment or reallocation, then Faris is acting on your behalf illegally, further complicating this matter.”

Persad-Bissessar called on the Law Association “to add your voices. This is a very serious matter for the legal fraternity in TT, for the rule of law and the administration of justice.”