Trinidad Minister remains in police custody

(Trinidad Guardian) The crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion against Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald and her com­pan­ion widened on Friday as po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors have un­earthed new in­for­ma­tion.

This as the cho­rus for her re­moval as a se­nior Cab­i­net min­is­ter gained mo­men­tum.

 
Mc­Don­ald, the MP for Port-of-Spain South and a deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the rul­ing PNM, and Michael Carew were ar­rest­ed af­ter po­lice swooped down on their Val­ley View, Mara­cas/St Joseph home ear­ly Thurs­day.

De­fence at­tor­ney Pamela El­der told mem­bers of the me­dia last night that her client will re­main in po­lice cus­tody un­til the in­ter­views with Carew are com­plet­ed to­day.

She said Mc­Don­ald be­came in­censed by some of the ques­tions which she con­sid­ered of­fen­sive.

Po­lice of­fi­cers led Mc­Don­ald out of the build­ing while the me­dia was speak­ing to her at­tor­ney. Mc­Don­ald stum­bled on the steps and they ush­ered her in­to a wait­ing SUV. Long-time sup­port­er Chris­tine Levia, al­so known as Twig­gy, was out­side the build­ing and shout­ed at the po­lice to let “her min­is­ter” go home.

Po­lice be­gan ques­tion­ing Mc­Don­ald and Carew on Thurs­day evening at the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion and that process con­tin­ued for most of yes­ter­day as Mc­Don­ald and Carew were tak­en to the head of­fice of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau, at Mat­co Build­ing, in Port-of-Spain around 8 am.

Mc­Don­ald and Carew will re­main in po­lice cus­tody un­til in­ves­ti­ga­tors seek ad­vice from the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions on whether there was suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to sup­port the pos­si­bil­i­ty of crim­i­nal charges.

Sus­pects are usu­al­ly de­tained for 48 hours and re­leased if po­lice can­not gath­er enough ev­i­dence to file charges but that pe­ri­od can be ex­tend­ed in some cir­cum­stances.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley told Guardian Me­dia that he would await the out­come of the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­fore mak­ing any de­ci­sion. He said he did not in­tend to spec­u­late as he was not an “im­pa­tient per­son.”

Mc­Don­ald had twice been fired as a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter by Row­ley over al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct — once when she rec­om­mend­ed state hous­ing for Carew as Min­is­ter of Hous­ing in 2016 and af­ter she in­vit­ed a re­put­ed gang leader to her swear­ing-in as a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter at Pres­i­dent’s House in 2017.

Row­ley had re-ap­point­ed her to his Cab­i­net af­ter the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion had cleared Mc­Don­ald in re­la­tion to the claims that she in­flu­enced the award of funds to the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion linked to her hus­band and de­fend­ed his de­ci­sion even though a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the same mat­ter had not been com­plet­ed.

On Thurs­day night, Mc­Don­ald’s at­tor­ney, Pamela El­der SC, said her client had been co-op­er­at­ing with po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

El­der vis­it­ed her client twice at the PSB head of­fice yes­ter­day where she said her client was still be­ing in­ter­viewed by the po­lice.

At noon, deputy may­or of Port-of-Spain Hillan More­an brought food for the min­is­ter, as he had done on Thurs­day evening at the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion. More­an did not speak with the me­dia af­ter leav­ing the of­fice.

El­der SC spoke briefly with re­porters at around 2.15 pm, when she con­firmed that her clients were still be­ing in­ter­ro­gat­ed by po­lice. She stressed that up to that time her clients had not been charged.

She left, stat­ing that they had de­cid­ed to take a break and we’re ex­pect­ed to re­sume the in­ter­ro­ga­tion.

At around 4.30 pm sev­er­al of­fi­cers who had been at­tached to the case in St Joseph al­so left the PSB build­ing, prompt­ing spec­u­la­tion that they would be ap­proach­ing the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions to seek ad­vice in the case.

How­ev­er, El­der re­turned at around 5.15 pm and up to 7 pm, Mc­Don­ald and Carew were still be­ing in­ter­ro­gat­ed, sources said.

Around 5 am on Thurs­day, po­lice ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant at the home of Mc­Don­ald. Po­lice al­so searched Mc­Don­ald’s Port-of-Spain South con­stituen­cy of­fice at Pic­cadil­ly Street, in Port-of-Spain lat­er that day.

The al­le­ga­tions are con­nect­ed to the grant of state funds to three non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions; the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion, Wa­ter­wheel Foun­da­tion and a third en­ti­ty from the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Cul­ture which were al­leged­ly mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed. Mc­Don­ald once served as the Min­is­ter of that Min­istry and her hus­band is a reg­is­tered di­rec­tor of the NGOs.

Mc­Don­ald, a Par­lia­men­tar­i­an for 12 years was re­moved as Min­is­ter of Hous­ing on March 17, 2016 af­ter ques­tions about the Cal­abar Foun­da­tion, first raised by a Guardian Me­dia re­port in 2014. The ar­ti­cle was prompt­ed by claims from ac­tivist group Fix­in’ T&T.

Two days af­ter her re­moval as Hous­ing Min­is­ter, a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion was launched in­to the al­le­ga­tions.

On June 30 2017, Mc­Don­ald was ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, but that ap­point­ment last­ed two days as her ap­point­ment was re­voked amid a con­tro­ver­sy and con­cern­ing a pro­to­col breach which saw Sea Lots res­i­dents Cedric “Burkie” Burke and Ken­roy Dop­well at­tend her swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny at Pres­i­dent’s House.

She re­turned to Cab­i­net in March 2018.