– after second statement provides time, place and details of meeting
Sedition accused Oliver Hinckson has denied initiating a meeting with PPP/C Member of Parliament Anil Nandlall and insisted that the two discussed nothing that invited the privilege of a client-attorney relationship. But Nandlall said yesterday that Hinckson was becoming delusional.
In a second statement issued yesterday, Hinckson said his meeting with Nandlall took place at the Georgetown Football Club on February 23 between 4.30 pm and 7 pm.
This second statement, which also bore Hinckson’s signature, said there were never any matters of a private or legal nature engaging their mutual attention.
The statement said that at all times during the meeting, Nandlall held himself out to be a highly placed and influential emissary of the President. Hinckson alleged that at the Mashramani day meeting, he and Nandlall discussed a wide range of issues, which included a wish by Jagdeo for a speedy and peaceful resolution to the problems of violence that were engulfing the society.
According to the statement, Hinckson’s initiative to act as ‘good officer’ in the process was seen as “helpful and in the best national interest”.
It also said that the “exploratory talks” were in the context of tensions within the PPP and that “factions and forces within the PPP were (arrayed) against the President, and against any attempts at dialogue with those persons identified and demonized as the criminal elements in Buxton.”
Contacted yesterday, Nandlall, an attorney-at-law, told Stabroek News that he had seen a copy of Hinckson’s second statement. He said all he would do was to repeat and rely on his original position on the matter. On Thursday, when the first statement was released to the media alleging that Hinckson had received an emissary from the President on his offer to mediate with the gunmen, the Office of the President had swiftly denounced it as a “blatant lie”. Nandlall had admitted meeting Hinckson, but said he hadn’t done so on behalf of anyone.
He said he had met the ex-army officer in his private capacity as an attorney-at-law. He said Hinckson had requested the meeting with him, and he had gone to find out why Hinckson wanted to meet him.
Nandlall did not change this position yesterday, but said he wished to add: “at no point in time did I even say anything or act in any manner that would have conveyed to Hinckson that I was an emissary of the President or any agent of any organisation.
“I feel Mr Hinckson is becoming delusional,” he said.
Asked whether he had spent two and a half hours with Hinckson, Nandlall told this newspaper that he did not time the meeting, was not at liberty to say what was discussed and had nothing further to say on the allegations.
Hinckson, in a statement released to the media on Thursday, said he was met by a high-ranking Member of Parliament, sent by President Jagdeo, prior to the sedition charge against him, for the purpose of engaging him specifically on his mediation offer. It said that after Mayor Hamilton Green’s press conference of February 1, which he had attended and where he made the speech that is now the basis for the charges against him, the President sent a “trusted” emissary to him and the two met at a prominent social club for two and a half hours.
It said the meeting was for the purpose of engaging Hinckson specifically on the offer of mediation, which he proposed at the City Hall press conference.
A press release from OP on Thursday, said the statement was a blatant lie and a total fabrication. “At no point in time has the President dispatched any emissary and/or made arrangement for any engagement whatsoever with the sedition accused, Mr Oliver Hinckson,” OP said.
The OP release contended that the Hinckson statement was clearly intended to mislead the public and create confusion about the President’s rejection of talks with criminals.
At a press conference hosted by Mayor Green on February 1, less than a week after the January 26, brutal slaying of 11 men, women and children at Lusignan, East Coast Demerara, Hinckson, suggested that the killings were more than a criminal problem as all the evidence pointed to that. He then recommended that there should be some form of discourse between the government and the disenchanted.
“There must be some discourse between the so-called insurgents, those with a grievance and those who have the capacity to assist in that negotiation,” he had said.
Hinckson further said that he and other ex-servicemen were prepared, “fully knowing that we do not have a tacit hand or an actual hand in any kind of mischief, but we are prepared to risk our lives, venture into Buxton and assist in some kind of negotiation between the government and the disenchanted.”
Hinckson has since been charged with advocating the commission of a terrorist act and uttering seditious statements.
