AG: Hanging is the law

Of that 32, none of them are in a position to meet the hangman.” Underscoring that, “under the laws of TT, the punishment for murder...a conviction of murder is that you shall hang until you are dead,” Al Rawi cited various reasons why none of these persons can be executed at this time. “Some because of the application of the rule in Pratt and Morgan which says five years after your sentencing, you are going to have it commuted to murder punishable by hanging being off the books and you’re now moving to life imprisonment,” he stated.

Al Rawi explained other persons are, “not ready to face the hangman because their appellate process is still ongoing.” He said their processes are taking place before the Court of Appeal in TT, the Privy Council in London and the Inter-American Committee on Human Rights. “Those three courts sit on the appellate function and we are tracking each and every one of them. So I can guarantee you that those 32 files are on the desk and constantly reviewed to see what the position is,” he said.

Noting this was an urgent question which Chaguanas West MP Ganga Singh has posed to him to answer at yesterday’s sitting but did not because the Opposition boycotted the sitting, Al Rawi found it strange that the Opposition was talking about crime when Government was dealing with the Tax Information Exchange Agreement Bill 2016 which deals with “taking the profit out of crime.” Disclosing that this bill will join others directed at the same objective in January in Parliament, Al Rawi said Government believes, “the larger more effective medicine to be applied” to combat crime is, “to chase the money...”