Former junior minister guilty of refusing to take breathalyser test

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Former junior national security minister Collin Partap has been slapped with a TT$5,000 (One TT dollar =US$0.16 cents) fine after he was found guilty Tuesday of a charge of failing to submit himself to a breathalyser test outside a night club last year. Chief Magistrate Marcia Ayres-Caesar, who earlier this month had rejected a no case submission made by Senior Counsel Israel Khan, ordered that Partap, pay the fine within one week or face a nine month jail term. Partap, the son of the island’s Ambassador to South Africa, Harry Partap, was fired by Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar a few hours after he was detained by the police on August 26, 2012 for failing to take a breathalyser test.