Gov’t is aware of concerns with special prosecutors - Harmon

Gov’t is aware of concerns with special prosecutors – Harmon

May 05, 2017 News

…AG to address issue

Minister of State Joseph Harmon at his weekly post cabinet press briefing yesterday said that government is aware of the concerns raised by the police legal adviser on the issue on non-cooperation by the Special prosecutors.

Minister of State Joseph Harmon

Yesterday Police Legal Adviser, Justice Claudette Singh, SC, said that the prosecutors are “non-co-operative and that they were not pulling their weight”.
Yesterday, Harmon explained that the six attorneys are not responsible for investigating any matters involving the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU); rather they are there to prosecute those cases.
Harmon also said he understood Madame Singh’s concerns and he believes that her frustration stemmed from the fact that she wanted to ensure that the cases that are built are ‘water tight’.
It is for this reason, Harmon said, that the lack of cooperation is now engaging the attention of Attorney General, Basil Williams SC.
The police legal adviser yesterday advocated that Harmon and Williams should play a more active role in ‘pulling these officials in line’. She was of the view that the lack of cooperation was hindering the expeditious delivery of prosecution in many of the investigations that SOCU is conducting.
She also said that had the (Special Prosecutors) been more involved in the building of the cases by SOCU, more would have been accomplished by this time.
The retired Judge told this newspaper yesterday that a meeting was also planned for Wednesday with the six lawyers, Michael Somersall, Hewley Griffith, Lawrence Harris, Patrice Henry, Compton Richardson, and Trenton Lake.
When Kaieteur News contacted the police legal adviser yesterday she said that the situation remained the same. Only one of the special prosecutors attended that meeting despite her concerns.
She noted that she will continue to do her work and if the officials turn up to meetings that will be great going forward if not the work will continue in their absence.
She explained that the behaviour of these officials will have to be addressed by the necessary authority and hopefully this will change.
When the government appointed the six lawyers it was indicated that this move was necessitated to ensure that the state is adequately represented in many of the cases that are expected from SOCU’s ongoing investigations into alleged widespread malfeasance by former public officials.
The government at the time of the appointments informed that $100M was set aside to offset payments to the prosecutors.
One source said that it was unfortunate that there is a lack of cooperation by the lawyers although such a large sum was set aside for this exercise. The source also said that the ruling administration has to take a more ‘rigid’ approach in dealing with the prosecutors because the state runs the risk of cases ‘falling down’.
Since the appointment of these officials a few months ago no one has been charged; this is despite two files been ready for prosecution by the police legal adviser who said that she needed to brief the officials on the way forward.
Yesterday Liz Rahaman, the Communications Officer of the Office of the DPP responded to an article in Kaieteur News that stated 30 files were sent to the DPP and the police legal adviser, and none was returned.
Rahaman said that SOCU sent seven files to that entity and five were returned with advice. The other two are still being perused.

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