I REFER to a letter of some length published in the Kaieteur News of March 17 under the caption “Was the P.P.P playing political games with the Lusignan Massacre trial”, purportedly written by one M. Maxwell.
Let me declare from the outset that I believe “M. Maxwell” is a pen name, and I have my suspicion of who the real author is. The letter makes a number of hysterical and unbridled allegations, some of which are simply unworthy of a response.
Some attempt is made to ensnare me in the conundrum in which Mr. Nigel Hughes has found himself in relation to the foreman of the jury in the Lusignan massacre murder trial. And also there is some attempt to convert the P.P.P into the prosecutorial realm of criminal proceedings in our legal system.
A wise man once told me that even the most bizarre allegations, if not challenged, can become the truth in the deductive process of certain minds. I wish to avoid such a possibility.
The P.P.P, as a political party, plays no role in the prosecution of criminal matters. In fact, the Constitution specifically insulates political influence from the prosecutorial process. The assertion, therefore, that the P.P.P failed to deliver a conviction in the Lusignan Massacre is simply ludicrous. The impression is conveyed that the Attorney-General superintends the D.P.P in the discharge of her functions, but that is equally grounded in pure ignorance.
Article 187 of the Constitution vests in the D.P.P the power to institute, undertake, takeover, continue or discontinue criminal proceedings within the State of Guyana. It specifically provides that, in the exercise of those powers, the D.P.P “shall not be subject to the direction or control of any other person or authority”.
The D.P.P has already issued a public statement on this matter when Mr. Hughes questioned why the D.P.P and the Attorney General converted one accused person into a state witness in the Lusignan massacre murder trial.
I deliberately ignored Mr. Hughes, because I reckoned that he must be aware of the provisions of Article 187, and intended to be facetious by posing such a question to the Attorney-General.
The letter next proceeds to link me to Vernon Griffith, the foreman of the jury in that infamous trial, by contending that I had “a more recent relationship with Griffith”, and later on, that I had “a more recent non-hostile relationship with that juror”.
Unfortunately, the author did not explain the nature and purport of this “relationship” between Mr. Griffith and me. However, I surmise that there is only one issue to which he can be referring: In October, 2011, Mr. Manoj Narayan, Attorney-at-Law and an associate in my law firm, filed an Action for libel for and on behalf of Vernon Griffith. I recall that when the Nigel Hughes fiasco hit the fan, Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan, in his haste to defend the Chairman of his party, held a press conference and produced those legal proceedings in his clumsy attempt to implicate me in a similar ethical mess.
Fortunately, the press quickly deciphered his attempt at artifice. Reporters who were present informed me that they examined the documents produced by Mr. Ramjattan, and those documents were signed by Mr. Narayan, and not me. More fundamentally, neither Narayan nor, of course, me appeared in any murder trial in which Griffith was a juror, moreso the foreman. That was the gravamen of the complaint against Mr. Hughes.
So, unfortunately for Mr. Ramjattan, and by extension the A.F.C, common sense and logic triumphed over gullibility. The story never made it.
To Mr. Griffith, I say, ‘your attempt to daub other people’s mess on me will also not make it’.
Yours faithfully,
Mohabir Anil Nandlall
Attorney-General and
Minister of Legal Affairs