Former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj has called on Attorney General Anand Ramlogan to recuse himself from office and allow a fair and independent foreign investigation into the e-mail scandal. Speaking at a news conference at his San Fernando office yesterday, Maharaj said any investigation by acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams, with Ramlogan at the helm, would be a sham.
He added: “The present AG would in any such investigations be the subject of the investigations and it would not be right and in the public interest for him to occupy the office of the AG during these investigations.
“You cannot have an attorney general who is the subject of an inquiry, controlling the machinery for the mutual legal assistance, controlling the machinery for all the law enforcement agencies, controlling machinery for the lawyers who will be appointed. You cannot have that if you want a fair investigation. It will be a sham investigation.”
Maharaj therfore recommended that the AG should be reassigned to a different ministry or temporarily resign to facilitate an independent, impartial probe. He also said if Ramlogan did not recuse himself it would be the duty of the Prime Minister to reassign or remove him.
He added: “If these e-mails are authentic and the allegations are true, I think all right-thinking citizens will agree that they constitute a serious attack on the founding principles of our nation’s Constitution, the right of journalists not to be harassed by any government for doing their duties and the independence of important institutions in the State, including the Judiciary and the Office of the DPP, the integrity of ministers of government, the enjoyment of human and fundamental rights and the rule of law.”
He called on President Anthony Carmona to liaise with Persad-Bissessar and the Opposition leader to appoint an investigator. “This special investigator or special counsel does not have to be someone living in T&T. Government must provide financial and other resources to the investigator, who would work with the Office of Public Prosecutions and the Office of the Commissioner of Police,” Maharaj said. He also suggested that the mobile phones and the computers belonging to those implicated should be seized.
Maharaj further called on Persad-Bissessar and her two senior Cabinet ministers to swear to a statutory declaration that the contents of the e-mails were not authored by them. “In order to facilitate an independent and impartial investigation and show their bona-fide commitment, they would immediately make their cellphones and computers available and they would immediately lodge them at the Office of the DPP and the Commissioner of Police,” he said.