Saying that she was appalled by Attorney General John Jeremie’s statement to Parliament yesterday, Siparia MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar accused him of contempt of court and of compromising the investigation into the allegations contained in Yasin Abu Bakr’s affidavit.

’It is not for the honourable Attorney General to judge and given his track record of judgment, we have very serious concerns with anything he pronounces on,’ she said as she began her contribution to the budget debate.

Jeremie commented on the decision of Justice Rajendra Narine to refer Bakr’s affidavit which alleges that Prime Minister Patrick Manning made a deal with Bakr not to pursue the order for payment for damages to the State in exchange for Jamaat assistance in the 2002 general election, to the Commissioner of Police and the Director of Public Prosecution.

But Persad-Bissessar charged that Jeremie had abused parliamentary privilege.

But House Speaker Barry Sinanan intervened saying, ’No, if he were doing that, I would certainly have stopped him.’

’He came to the Parliament and under the cloak of parliamentary privilege and the words he spoke, if they were spoken outside, he would have been guilty of contempt of court and he would have had to go to jail,’ Persad-Bissessar rejoined.

She said it was trite law that when a judgment was given by the court, one could not comment negatively on it.

Sinanan again interrupted, pointing out that his understanding was that one could criticise the judgment. ’What you cannot do is criticise the judge,’ he said. Persad-Bissessar said in her respectful view, when she listened to Jeremie’s statement, it constituted an attack on a judge of the Supreme Court. She added that this was the very Attorney General who only recently received a vote of no confidence from the legal fraternity.

Persad-Bissessar noted that Jeremie said the Court of Appeal ruled that the matter contained in the affidavit was scandalous. ’Correct,’ said Manning. ’Because it is scandalous and irrelevant doesn’t mean that it is not true,’ Persad-Bissessar shot back.

She said while the court ruled that Bakr was attempting to rely upon what would be an illegal agreement, it did not say that his allegations were not true.

’At no point in time has the court or anyone said that the statements of Bakr were not true,’ she said. She said the judge having referred it now to the Commissioner of Police meant that it was a matter for investigation.

And you (the Government) are prejudicing these investigations,’ Oropouche MP Roodal Moonilal chided in.

Persad-Bissessar said the allegations in the affidavit matched those that had been made by the UNC-that Muslimeen power was used to intimidate, frighten and harass voters in the marginal seats so that the PNM would win the elections. She got support from Mayaro MP Winston ’Gypsy’ Peters, who nodded vigorously, when she said the UNC had witnessed this first hand during the campaign.

Imbert raised the issue of relevance of Persad-Bissessar’s statements to a budget debate, but Sinanan said he was allowing Persad-Bissessar some latitude since the debate was ’on the general policies of government policy and administration as defined in the Appropriation bill’.

Noting that Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira talked about zero tolerance against crime, Persad-Bissessar said here was an allegation of a crime which in the public interest ought to be clarified.

’I am sure that the citizens of this country are very distressed to think that there may be possible criminal conduct on the part of the Prime Minister,’ she said, adding that it had to be investigated.

However, she said the UNC was sceptical that there would be an independent investigation and she therefore called for an independent investigation.