Theresa Hadad, the private attorney of Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi, has received a lucrative state legal brief. The disclosure was made in the Senate yesterday afternoon by Opposition Senator Wayne Sturge during his presentation to the debate on the Appropriation Bill.
Sturge, an attorney, whose gun was trained on the AG for most of his presentation, said lawyers senior to Hadad in the AG’s office were reportedly concerned about why they were by-passed in favour of her.
Sturge also called on the Attorney General to say whether lawyers appearing for the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) in the Opposition’s election writ were rewarded with State briefs and what the fees were.
Al-Rawi, contacted for a response, said he was in a meeting in Paris and it was 9 pm. He confirmed Hadad was hired for the State’s matter involving Rajaee Ali who is incarcerated at the Port-of-Spain State Prison on gang-related charges.
Attorney Gerald Ramdeen, representing Ali, brought a matter against the State seeking to have Ali removed from his present place of incarceration to another, Al-Rawi said.
However, Hadad was hired only after every single other State attorney refused the brief because of safety concerns, he added. He said the Ali matter was an emergency application made in the Court of Appeal and State attorneys categorically said they were unprepared when asked by him to handle the matter.
“Every attorney refused. The only attorney available at the time was the instructing attorney (Hadad). The matter is a very sensitive one and being handled very carefully,” he said.
Acting AG, Stuart Young, also gave a fiery response to Sturge in the Senate. Repeating what Al-Rawi told the T&T Guardian, he gave kudos to Hadad for “doing what is right and accepting the brief.” Young deftly avoided mention of how much Hadad was being paid by stating that the PNM was going to change the fee schedule for attorneys so they were paid hourly.
Al-Rawi also responded to statements made by Sturge about 1 Alexandra Street, Port-of-Spain.
In response to the Government’s charge that the contract for the outfitting of the building at 1 Alexandra Street by the last administration reeked of corruption, Sturge told the Senate that $45 million in taxpayers money was paid to Al-Rawi’s father-in-law for the rental of the property, even while it was empty.
Al-Rawi, confirming his father-in-law was the landlord, said everything was above board. He said that was not the issue. The issue was the questions over the outfitting contract. Young, in the Senate, described Sturge’s disclosures as a “cowardly attack on someone who was not there to defend himself.” He said there was absolutely nothing wrong paying rent for an empty property.
The rental agreement on the building had been in place since 2009 and since 2010 the Government has been paying $8.2 million annually in rent, at $690,000 a month, for the empty building in addition to $927,360 a year for security.
NJ Nahous Investments Ltd is the company listed at the building. Directors include Nazem Nahous, Jinan Nahous, Michael Nahous, Gina Nahous-Hajdar and Mona Nahous-Al Rawi, Al-Rawi’s wife.