By Sue-Ann Wayow
THE continued presence of Reginald Armour, SC, in the seat of the Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago, will destroy citizens’ faith and confidence in the administration of justice in the country.
This is according to Leader of the Opposition Kamla Persad-Bissessar who said, “He must stop his shamelessness and disgraceful behaviour and resign now or the PM should fire him.”
She made the statement on Thursday in another call for his resignation.
Persad-Bissessar said Armour continues to cling desperately to his office, deflecting pertinent questions from journalists and spending thousands of taxpayers’ dollars to place newspaper ads just to defend his lies.
She said according to Armour, he is telling the country in a statement that he could not remember if he was junior attorney and notetaker or a senior counsel during the Piarco International Airport preliminary inquiry, he also participated for five years on the case but yet cannot remember what he did and that he read the Affidavit, signed it, emailed it and indicated that he was under penalty of perjury and did not he realise what he signed was false and incorrect.
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According to the Opposition, 13 facts are:
1. Armour was aware of the conflicts of interest when the Motion to Disqualify was filed since the 13th April, 2022.
2. That Motion was 11 pages long and outlined Mr. Armour’s participation in the matters in Trinidad and Tobago. At that time, he knew he would have had to file an affidavit in response.
3. On the 24th April, 2022 he filed his affidavit in response.
4. If he could not remember, this means that he had 11 days between 13th April and 24th April in which to check the records, make phone calls, do a simple google search to file an accurate affidavit.
5. When Armour filed his affidavit on the 24th April, 2022, two days later, Steve Ferguson and former finance minister Brian Kuei Tung filed affidavits in Response to Armour on the 26th April, 2022.
6. Armour claims he was notified of these affidavits on the night of the 26th April, 2022 and wanted to file an affidavit correcting the affidavit he filed with the lies.
7. He claims he told this to Faris al Rawi who is the “client representative”.
8. Faris was present virtually at the hearing and did not indicate any such request from Armour to the Court.
9. Armour had the entire night of the 26th April before the hearing began to file the affidavit in the morning before the hearing.
10. At the time of the hearing Armour was not disqualified from the matter. Why didn’t he attend the court virtually and indicate he wanted to correct the affidavit? Instead, he claims he sat in his hotel room waiting for a call.
11. The transcript of the hearing on the 27th April, 2022, when the Motion to Disqualify was heard, discloses not a single application was made by the State’s lawyers to ask for an adjournment or for time for Armour to file another affidavit.
12. In fact, the lawyer representing Trinidad and Tobago relied on Armour affidavit’s during the hearing.
13. No mention was ever made as evidenced by the transcript that there was any need to have it corrected.
Persad-Bissessar said, “The sheer quantity and substance of his representations on behalf of Kuei Tung in the proceedings in Trinidad and Tobago make it impossible to believe that he forgot his role in those proceedings. It is clear that Reginald Armour lied on affidavit to cover his mess, hoping that Trinidad and Tobago would have been none the wiser about this lying Attorney General scandalising this fundamental constitutional office in a Miami Court.”
