(Trinidad Express) Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal and two UNC deputy political leaders, one of whom is a senator and another who used to be managing director of the Housing Development Corporation, have been named in evidence given to the Joint Select Committee on National Security as having connections with known criminal gang leaders.
The UNC has three deputy political leaders — Jearlean John, Khadijah Ameen and David Lee.
Testimony was given to the committee by both the Minister of National Security, Stuart Young, and Commissioner of Police, Gary Griffith, and the committee tabled its interim report in the House of Representatives on Friday.
The committee report, which summarised the evidence, stated that the Oropouche East MP had planned a meeting with two gang leaders in his constituency office but the meeting was aborted.
The report said the MP became aware that there was planned police surveillance of the meeting and he told the Commissioner of Police what he knew, something which caused the Commissioner to tell the Joint Select Committee that he was “concerned” about the “major breach” of confidentiality of the Special Investigating Unit.
The committee was also told that after certain individuals had a dispute at the Hyatt Regency hotel, Moonilal paid the Hyatt bill of $580 of these individuals, one of whom was “a known drug and robbery offender, who was taken into custody after the responding police officers were informed that there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest.”
