Will the AG resign? Gov’t chooses silence

 

By Fareeza Haniff

[www.inewsguyana.com] – After defending its Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister hours after the release of a recorded conversation between him and a senior journalist at the Kaieteur News, the Guyana government has now chosen to remain silent on the issue.

Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon told a news conference this morning, Wednesday, October 29, that the matter is now engaging the attention of the Court, thus government would not pronounce on it.

He was at the time responding to a question as to whether the government will given into several calls for Anil Nandall to step down as the country’s Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister.

“Information has been provided, until we clarified this issue, the information of legal action being filed has arisen and the matter being sub judice,” Dr Luncheon said.

Nandlall filed a $30M lawsuit against the Kaieteur News for libel contained in an article published on October 28 titled “Attorney General reveals plan to hit Glenn Lall, Kaieteur News”.

On October 27, Lall handed over to the police, a recording of a conversation between the AG and a senior reporter attached to the news outfit, where the AG allegedly made ‘violent threat’ against Lall and his staff.

The AG has since admitted to the conversation. In the almost 20 minutes recording, Nandlall said among other things: “I told Adam [Adam Harris, Editor, Kaieteur News] everybody don’t have a newspaper to use as a weapon, I told Adam people got weapons. If they continue to attack people like this and they [people] have no way of responding, they will just walk with their weapon into that same F**king Saffon Street office and wah come shall do.”

The Opposition parties have called on him to step down since the recording was made public.

Opposition Leader David Granger, in an exclusive interview with iNews yesterday, expressed the belief that it would be reasonable for President Donald Ramotar to call on the Minister to resign from office to allow for an impartial inquiry.

“It is serious for the Chief Legal Advisor to be involved insomething like this and in order to assure the public that there is transparency, he [the President] should ask the Attorney General to step down to allow for an investigation to be conducted,” Granger told iNews.

He said however, that if it is proven that Nandlall has not done anything wrong, he can be reinstated.

Meanwhile, Attorney – at – Law and Opposition Parliamentarian, Joseph Harmon says the AG should not be called upon to step down, instead he [Nandlall] should recognize that what is contained in the recording is damaging and dangerous to both himself and his office and should step aside voluntarily.

“If he does things that bring his office into disrepute he should step aside and allow for a full investigation to take place,” Harmon said; adding that “he should remove himself from office so that he does not exert that type of overwhelming influence which he can bring to bear on a police investigation,” Harmon told iNews.

The Alliance For Change has also called on President Ramotar to fire him.