Former Attorney General Ramesh L. Maharaj has responded to pejorative remarks made on a political platform by People's National Movement (PNM) leader Patrick Manning about him and UNC Deputy Leader Dr Surujrattan Rambachan.Manning made reference to the Scott Drug Report that was completed during the tenure of Prime Minister George Chambers, who was voted out of office in the NAR political tsunami in 1986.
Former Justice of Appeal, Garvin Scott, conducted the one-member probe that took evidence in secret. Scott implicated several people without giving them an opportunity to defend themselves.
The report was eventually laid in Parliament and led to the fingering of 52 police officers, including then Police Commissioner Randy Burroughs. No one else was ever charged and all the police officers were exonerated; some returned to active duty.
Manning spoke about the report at Tabaquite naming Maharaj and Rambachan.
In a lengthy statement outlining his fight against the authorities in the 1980s Maharaj noted that he was not aware that the report was being compiled and that he never had an opportunity to answer any of the allegations.
"The allegations made against me and Dr. Surujrattan Rambachan were subsequently shown to be false," he stated.
"It is sad that the Prime Minister has made these statements on several occasions in the past although he knows that those allegations...were not true and were even the subject of Court proceedings in which the allegations were not supported by any evidence," he added.
Maharaj noted that charges in respect of the allegations were dismissed since the 1980’s.
"Mr. Manning knows that I was arrested and prosecuted in the 1980’s in an attempt to silence me. He knows that all those attempts to silence me and to muzzle me failed," he declared.
"He is also aware that since the 1980’s I have continued to fight the evils of governance and that he has not been able to silence me or to muzzle me. He knows that I forced him to call the General Elections of 1995 with the exposure of his connections with (executed murderer and drug kingpin) Dole Chadee.
"He also knows that I forced him to call the elections of 2010 with the exposure I made in Parliament in May 2008 of the Calder Hart connection with CH Development Limited and the award of the contract by UEDCOTT to it in respect of the Ministry of Legal Affairs Tower," Maharaj charged.
"The facts clearly show that the allegations made against me in the Report referred to by Mr. Manning were fabricated. They were untrue. It was wrong therefore for Mr. Manning to make these false allegations both against me and Dr. Surujrattan Rambachan," Maharaj said.
And he warned Manning that "any continuation of this false impression of the facts without the protection of Parliamentary privilege entitles me to consider getting redress from the Court."
Rambachan has also responded to Manning's statements. "If he has any evidence that I have done something wrong then he should cause me to be charged," Rambachan told the Trinidad Guardian.
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