Criminal probe of Trinidad Minister widens

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

This came 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 on Friday night that her client will re­main in po­lice cus­tody un­til the in­ter­views with Carew are com­plet­ed, which was expected to be yesterday.

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 Friday 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.