A telephonic seriousness with Anil Nandlall

May 11, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

On Thursday, July 27, 2017 from his desk at Kaieteur News, Adam Harris said; “Freddie call Anil Nandlall, he wants to talk to you.” I replied, “To hell with Anil, I don’t want to speak to him after what I read he said about me yesterday.”
“Freddie, you are an effing idiot; that is what the man wants to talk to you about; he called me, he said he never had such a conversation. Call the man.”
About half an hour after that exchange, Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell beckoned me over to her desk. She said Anil Nandlall wants to talk to me. Anil told me that a conversation as reported in a letter in the KN the day before in which he was quoted never took place.
The caption of the letter was, “Ralph Ramkarran will never apologize to inferior quality” and carried the signature, “T. Karran.” I quote from the missive; “Kissoon is holding on to what he is ignorant of – law. At the time, he was guided by Anil Nandlall and Khemraj Ramjattan. A call to Mr. Nandlall over the weekend revealed that though he would not deny writing the university, he has no recollection of doing so. He also went on to state that he does not wish to get involved in the controversy since he has the greatest respect for Ramkarran and none for Kissoon.”
Anil said he didn’t know who was T. Karran and no such conversation took place. I suggested that he write a corrective letter to KN. He declined saying the proper thing to do was to tell me directly. I believe Anil. A forensic search showed which computer the letter came from and whose name the computer was registered to. There was no T. Karran. I knew who penned that letter.
That was the last time I spoke to Anil telephonically or otherwise or saw him. Anil called me two days ago. He wants me to correct two mistakes I made in a recent column in which he was mentioned. One is that Oliver Hinckson was not prosecuted for sedition after a private conversation that he had with him in his law office. Anil said Hinckson was charged for a public utterance at City Hall.
Secondly, he, Anil was not the AG when Hinckson and Benschop were charged for sedition.
After promising to publish the correction, we spent a long time chatting and I gave him permission to tape the conversation. He specifically requested his input remains sealed. I gave my word but I don’t mind being quoted. I have nothing to hide and I doubt I ever will.
My first expression against the background of the charges against Singh and Brassington was that Jagdeo corrupted the PPP and it has damaged Anil’s political future. He disagreed that his future is blunted.
We reminisced about the time he was my student and I did say to him and I am publishing it now – I have always regarded him as one of the brightest students I taught at UG in my twenty- six years there. I knew from his student’s days that he would have made a brilliant lawyer and he is.
I acknowledge to him in our chat that next to Nigel Hughes, he was the only lawyer that took poor people’s cases pro bono and from my experience with him, I respect him for that aspect of his early life. But I insisted and persisted in our telephonic tête-à tête that given what is happening with the state’s anti-corruption probe of the 13 years of PPP’s hegemony that he got tainted with the rut that characterized the nature of the Jagdeo presidency.
I did mention that it was unfortunate given my lofty impression of him when he was a non-PPP citizen and non-PPP lawyer how he turned out. One doesn’t know when death will strike and I will like if and when the notes of my life are published (perhaps by daughter) that I record important things in my life.
Anil Nandlall was very nice to me when we were personal friends and when he didn’t even know a PPP politician much less to become one of the important decision-makers in the PPP.
It was Anil who informed me of the willingness of a medical doctor to sell the land where my house presently stands. He was my lawyer in the transaction. When I started to build, he drove up at the site and handed me an envelope with fifty thousand dollars as a token gift. He did four important legal cases for me freely. But today, I don’t share his political activism at all.

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A telephonic seriousness with Anil Nandlall

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