THE Attorney-General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall yesterday responded to queries over his link to his relative, Mr. Kamal Mangal, and the importation of a high-end luxury vehicle under the remigrant duty-free concession scheme.

And he made it clear that the “concoction” by Kaieteur News, which has been peddling what Mangal himself has dubbed misinformation, will not influence him to withdraw the criminal charges laid against the paper’s publisher, Mr. Glenn Lall.

“Mr. Glenn Lall believes that by using his newspaper to lynch my family he will force me to influence the withdrawal of the criminal charges against him. If he is to succeed, I will be guilty of perverting the course of justice. I will do no such thing.” – (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs, “

“Mr. Glenn Lall believes that by using his newspaper to lynch my family he will force me to influence the withdrawal of the criminal charges against him. If he is to succeed, I will be guilty of perverting the course of justice. I will do no such thing. I am made of sterner stuff. In any event, only those who filed the charges can withdraw them. The quicker this is understood, the better,” Nandlall said.

“(This) is nothing short of blackmail, by those who labour under the self-induced delusion that they are above the law and therefore, when the law is applied to them, it is misconstrued as a plot to destroy them.” – (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall

Lall was fingered in an alleged remigrant duty-free concession scam, in August. Six criminal charges have altogether been since filed against Lall; his wife, Bhena;, and Narootandeo and Gharbassi Brijnanan, who have all been implicated in the scam. Lall and his wife have since been arraigned on four of these charges. The charges follow the seizure of two vehicles allegedly at the centre of a duty-free scam. The two vehicles in question, PRR 8398 and PRR 8399, were handed over to GRA and impounded at the Authority’s warehouse at the end of August, after an hours-long standoff between GRA officials and the Brijnanans’ son, Navin Sankar, a high-ranking GRA employee. As a result of several irregularities in Lall’s cases, an investigation was launched to ensure that procedures and policy of the scheme, as well as the provisions of the law were adhered to. The criminal charges, this newspaper understands, stem from that investigation.
The AG pointed out that Kaieteur News is “clearly” engaged in a relentless and desperate mission to concoct a scandal and place him in it. “This much must be obvious to the reader. The question is, why?” he said.
According to him, the embattled local daily has “descended” to new levels of low, under the “thin guise” of freedom of expression.
Nandlall said: “It is nothing short of blackmail, by those who labour under the self-induced delusion that they are above the law and therefore, when the law is applied to them, it is misconstrued as a plot to destroy them.
“In the end, what must be excruciatingly plain is that this has nothing to do with freedom of expression, but a newspaper being used to defend criminal charges and to avoid the application to them of the laws of this land. In this quest, they will not succeed.”