The Alliance for Change (AFC) yesterday called on Director of Public Prosecu-tions (DPP) Shalimar Ali-Hack to reexamine the evidence in the Attorney General’s alleged threatening case in keeping with the section of the amended Criminal Offences Act which deals with terrorism.
The party insists that the words uttered can be described as terrorism, and it pointed to the existence of intended acts of terror against Glenn Lall and his newspaper, the Kaieteur News.
Last Monday, the DPP said in a statement that she had advised that no charges be laid against Attorney General Anil Nandlall for the threatening remarks he made against the Kaieteur News owner and staff as the police file sent to her contains no such evidence. Lall’s complaint is that the threats were made during a conversation between Nandlall and his senior reporter Leonard Gildarie in October.
The AFC, in its press release said that it is aware that in 2002 the PPP Government, “who then enjoyed a majority in Parliament,” passed an amendment to the Criminal Law Offences Act to create a new offence of terrorism.
The new offence, section 309 A (a), the party said provides: “Whoever with intent to strike terror in any section of the people does any act or thing by using firearms or lethal weapons in such a manner as to cause or likely to cause death or injuries to any person or persons …commits a terrorist act.”
Section 309 a (2) provides: “Whoever advocates, aides and abets, advises or incites or knowingly facilitates the commission or, a terrorist act or any act preparatory to a terrorist act commits an offence…”
The party then went on to state that the Attorney General has confirmed that he did utter to Gildarie: “there is a simpler way of dealing with this situation you know, I tell Glenn already. He knows I have capacity and I know his. I don’t have to go court every day and issue press statements, I don’t have to resort to those methods…there are far more effective measures to which I can resort.”
And: “I think that you should, my first advice to you is that you should move out of there… it is a dangerous f**king place to work, is a dangerous place because that, I am telling you, read between the lines this thing not going to go on for long, people not going to tek this thing just so is a lot of powerful people that this man…”
And: “no hear nah you know how it gun stop? somebody gun go into Kaieteur, you see everybody nah gat as I told Adam today I said Adam everybody don’t just… everybody, wait hold on…everybody doesn’t have a newspaper to use as a weapon, I told Adam, I said Adam people got weapons right, is not newspaper they gonna use as a weapon they got weapons and when you continue attack people like that and they have no way of responding they gun just walk with their weapon into that same f**king Saffon Street office and wha come suh do and innocent, Peter gun gah pay fuh f**king Paul in deh one day, me ah tell you innocent, me a tell you honestly man to man that will happen soon.”
The party said it was difficult to appreciate the context in which the DPP offered the advice she did, in the light of the “clear unambiguous statements” of the Attorney General about the existence of intended acts of terror against a national newspaper and its owner. It said such intention was all the more corroborated by the warning to Gildarie to remove from there.
The AFC “urges the Director of Public Prosecutions to revisit her examination of the evidence in light of the provisions of section 309 A of the Criminal Law Offences Act,” the release said.
The DPP in her statement while pointing out that the 19-minute conversation in question is not between Lall and Nandlall said that the offence created in Section 141 (a) Chapter 8:02 is in relation to the speaker (Nandlall) using threatening language with intent to provoke anyone else to commit a breach of the peace, that is, provoking another person to do so. The threatening language must be such as is likely to provoke a breach of the peace. For the threatening language to result in provocation, the threat must be directly communicated to the person to whom it concerns, that is, in his presence and hearing.
According to the DPP there is no evidence of this contained in the police file.
Nandlall had never disputed that he was the person speaking to Gildarie, but stressed that it was a private conversation which was manipulated and taken out of context.
Further, the DPP said that the offence created in Section 141 (b) Chapter 8:02 is in relation to the person using abusive, insulting, obscene or profane language to the annoyance of another, that is, such language is used directly to the other person in his presence and annoys him. There is no evidence of this, in the file, the release stated.
The alleged recording of the telephone conversation does not fall under Section 141 (a) or (b) Chapter 8:02, it was stated.
It was based on the above explanations that that the DPP found that the recording did not provide an evidential basis which can support the institution of criminal proceedings.
