Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is seek­ing of­fi­cial cor­rob­o­ra­tion of the in­for­ma­tion in the Reuters FBI probe sto­ry in which Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er and his son Daryan are men­tioned, ac­cord­ing to the PM's of­fice.This state­ment was is­sued yes­ter­day af­ter­noon by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) in re­sponse to queries about the in­ter­na­tion­al Reuters sto­ry, head­lined "FBI has co-op­er­at­ing wit­ness for soc­cer fraud probe: sources."

The news re­port by jour­nal­ist Mark Ho­sen­ball said an FBI probe in­to al­leged cor­rup­tion in in­ter­na­tion­al soc­cer had "re­cent­ly in­ten­si­fied af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tors per­suad­ed a key par­ty to be a co-op­er­at­ing wit­ness."The ar­ti­cle quot­ed US law-en­force­ment sources.The sto­ry claimed the wit­ness was Daryan Warn­er, son of Warn­er, a for­mer Fi­fa vice-pres­i­dent. The sources re­port­ed­ly de­clined to dis­cuss the role of Daryan Warn­er fur­ther. The sto­ry said they did not iden­ti­fy who might be charged, if any­body, or when.

It al­so claimed: "While the ex­act scope of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is not clear, among the mat­ters un­der scruti­ny are two pre­vi­ous­ly re­port­ed al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing Jack Warn­er who is T&T's Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter."The OPM's state­ment quot­ed the Prime Min­is­ter as say­ing she "will not re­ly on pub­lished re­ports in the me­dia but will again seek to get of­fi­cial cor­rob­o­ra­tion of the in­for­ma­tion now in the pub­lic do­main be­fore mak­ing any de­ter­mi­na­tion or pro­nounce­ment."

Gov­ern­ment sources said it was ex­pect­ed some in­for­ma­tion would be ob­tained on the sto­ry by to­day's Cab­i­net meet­ing.Asked about the ar­ti­cle yes­ter­day, Warn­er's ad­vis­er Fran­cis Joseph said the min­is­ter had not seen it yet and was in a meet­ing. He said Warn­er had been in touch with his son every day.The UNC hi­er­ar­chy yes­ter­day re­mained mum on the re­port on its chair­man.

UNC deputy leader Su­ruj Ram­bachan said while he had seen the sto­ry, he was not in a po­si­tion to re­spond. "I think the par­ty has to prop­er­ly re­spond," he added.UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal re­spond­ed to a texted re­quest for com­ment with the mes­sage: "No com­ment." At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan al­so did not re­spond.

COP speaks

The COP is al­so seek­ing facts on the Reuters sto­ry, says COP chair­man Car­olyn Seep­er­sad- Bachan.COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har is on va­ca­tion un­til April 13, his sec­re­tari­at said yes­ter­day. While the COP has a par­ty prin­ci­ple that se­nior mem­bers un­der a cloud of al­le­ga­tion or probe should step aside from any of­fice, Seep­er­sad-Bachan said the Reuters sto­ry had to be ver­i­fied first and more de­tails ob­tained be­fore COP could com­ment:

She added: "We do not have the facts. If there's any in­ves­ti­ga­tion, we need to ver­i­fy that. We have to get the facts first and as­cer­tain if there's an in­ves­ti­ga­tion and the oth­er side has to be heard be­fore we make any pro­nounce­ment."For­mer COP vice chair­man Ver­non de Li­ma said: "COP's po­si­tion is and al­ways has been: Mr Warn­er should not be a Cab­i­net mem­ber un­til such time as he is clear of any or all al­le­ga­tions against him.

"In my view he should have stopped be­ing in Cab­i­net two years ago when is­sues first arose and we in COP sug­gest­ed that. We fore­saw at the time there could have been com­pli­ca­tions."De Li­ma added: "He's ful­ly en­ti­tled to have his side of the sto­ry heard and I am hold­ing to the po­si­tion I have al­ways held: That I am con­fi­dent Mr Warn­er will short­ly vis­it the US and clear up any al­le­ga­tions that may be spu­ri­ous. It's on­ly fair to him."

PNM wants an­swers

No less than a prime min­is­te­r­i­al ex­pla­na­tion will suf­fice on the Reuters sto­ry, says the Op­po­si­tion PNM."It may be a case of 'we told you so,' and so the Prime Min­is­ter must clear the air on this in­ter­na­tion­al re­port where one of our min­is­ter is men­tioned and she must say if there is va­lid­i­ty in it," said PNM sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds yes­ter­day.

Call­ing for Gov­ern­ment's view, Hinds added: "We know Mr Warn­er's sons are in the US and have not re­turned to T&T in a long time and we are now hear­ing of this (Reuters re­port). It's clear­ly se­ri­ous."If it's true, then the in­ter­na­tion­al em­bar­rass­ment in this will be laid at the feet of the Prime Min­is­ter as it was on her au­thor­i­ty min­is­ters were ap­point­ed."

Hinds added: "I call on the Prime Min­is­ter to tell us what is the state of af­fairs re­gard­ing her min­is­ter, who we said ought not to have been min­is­ter in the first place. She ap­point­ed him and de­fend­ed him so she must ex­plain now."He said he al­so want­ed an­swers from the act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er on his call for scruti­ny of bribery al­le­ga­tions con­cern­ing the al­leged CFU is­sue at the Hy­att in 2011. Hinds said an in­ves­ti­ga­tor was as­signed to probe Con­ca­caf deal­ings as far back as they could look.

"But we've had no feed­back from the act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er on this," he added.