Minister in the Office of the Attorney General and Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister “has the full support of his Cabinet team.”
This from Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi in the face of reports of a personal matter involving Young and questions about a conflict of interest relating to his private accommodation.
Reports are that Young’s landlord is a top official of State-owned oil company Petrotrin, which only last week appeared before the Joint Select Committee of Parliament on Energy. The report said Young should have made the relationship known and recused himself.
But Young deflected the issue when the question of the conflict of interest was put to him at the weekly post-Cabinet news conference yesterday. He said he wanted his “private and personal life,” to remain just that and he had no intention of being drawn into any public discussion into matters involving his private life.
On his Facebook page on Tuesday night, Young acknowledged that he had “seen the article” and confirmed that “my relationship with my partner has ended and we have parted ways on amicable terms.” Young made it clear in the post that he would like his “private and personal life to remain as such and I have no intention of being drawn into any discussion of same.”
In the social media post, Young said he expected that because of “the work that I do, those who oppose me, for their own reasons, may continue to attack me.”
At yesterday’s news conference, Al-Rawi picked up the point, linking the publication of the report on Young’s private life to “those persons who have a problem with Young’s immense capacity and ability and his very aggressive charge to anti-corruption matters,” being pursued by the AG’s office. He said they “will do anything in their power to malign him.”
Al-Rawi said it was a case of “if you can’t attack someone on the basis of their competence and professionalism then you go into their private life.”
But Al-Rawi, who himself was in the spotlight earlier this year on an issue involving two teenagers with weapons at Camp Cumuto, said those who attack people and their family “ought to be viewed as cowards.”
Al-Rawi said Young had “the full support of his Cabinet team.”
There is no way, he said, that anyone can criticise the work which Young does.