(Trinidad Express) Sasha Mohammed, adviser to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, will not be charged with harassing Express editor-in-chief Omatie Lyder and reporter Anna Ramdass.
Director of Public Prosecutions, Roger Gaspard, last week advised the police not to lay any charges against Mohammed since there was insufficient evidence to successfully secure a conviction, police sources said yesterday.
Police were seeking to charge Mohammed under the Amendment of the Offences against the Persons Act Chapter 11:08 Act No. 11 of 2005 which deals with harassment.
According to police sources, had Mohammed sent the e-mail on more than one occasion to Lyder and Ramdass, she would have been charged with the offence.
The matter is therefore now closed, police sources said.
Section 30A (b) of the Act says “a course of conduct” involves conduct of the kind referred to in paragraph (a) carried out on at least two occasions.
Pressure has been mounting on Persad-Bissessar from various quarters, including factions of the coalition government and the Opposition People’s National Movement, to fire Mohammed.
On January 30, a threatening e-mail was sent to Lyder and Ramdass by someone named using the name “Janice Thomas” in connection with the Reshmi Ramnarine story being investigated by the Express.
The e-mail, which targeted Lyder and Ramdass, was addressed to editors and reporters of the Express and staff of CCN-TV6 as well as other media houses, accused Lyder and Ramdass of a personal vendetta against Ramnarine.
The e-mail stated that “their day in the sun is over” and “this is the beginning…They will understand the consequences of their actions…”
The Express first broke the story of the questionable appointment of Ramnarine to the post of director of the Strategic Services Agency (SSA) and had at the time been investigating how she came to be hired as director of the SSA without the necessary qualifications.
Mohammed was warned by police on June 17, after a probe uncovered that the e-mail originated from the computer at her San Juan home. Mohammed, through her attorneys, denied issuing the emails.
Police sources said that Gaspard, after reviewing the file, noted that under 30A section (b) of the Offences Against the Persons Act (Amendment) 2005, the email which went set to them (Lyder and Ramdass) would have had to be sent on more than one occasion.
