Richard Lord

Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning dis­closed last night that an un­named or­gan­i­sa­tion was be­hind a plot to kill him. He said this was re­vealed to his wife Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Hazel Man­ning three days be­fore last year's an­niver­sary of the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup.

Speak­ing in Ari­ma last night, Man­ning said there could have been blood­shed in T&T on the eve of last year's at­tempt­ed coup. He be­gan by de­scrib­ing the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup by the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen as a "mo­men­tous event." Man­ning said: "One year ago, on the morn­ing of Sat­ur­day Ju­ly 26, when the Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and my­self were on the way to our gym at 3.30 in the morn­ing, a marked po­lice ve­hi­cle sought to peel off the fi­nal ve­hi­cle in our (se­cu­ri­ty) de­tail. We had one un­marked car in which we were trav­el­ling and there were two jeeps be­hind us, so every­body knew it was the Prime Min­is­ter's de­tail."

He added: "A marked po­lice ve­hi­cle came and made an at­tempt to peel off the fi­nal jeep in our de­tail." Man­ning said the ve­hi­cle in the se­cu­ri­ty de­tail re­fused to be peeled off "and to be sep­a­rat­ed from the rest of the (se­cu­ri­ty) de­tail (and) all kinds of scuf­fles en­sued, which caused us to abort our mis­sion that morn­ing and to re­turn home very quick­ly." He said: "What has not been said on this mat­ter be­fore is that two days be­fore that, some­one walked in­to the of­fice of the Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and told her that a cer­tain or­gan­i­sa­tion in this coun­try was about to make an at­tempt to as­sas­si­nate the Prime Min­is­ter.

"That is what the Prime Min­is­ter knew that morn­ing." Man­ning said: "For­tu­nate­ly for us we did not re­port it at the time." He said: "Had it been re­port­ed, I as­sure you, there would have been blood­shed that morn­ing and cer­tain peo­ple would have been killed, there is no ques­tion about it." Man­ning said he thanked God that the threat was not re­port­ed then. He said:"The Prime Min­is­ter has con­fi­dence in his se­cu­ri­ty de­tail who have put their lives on the line to en­sure that T&T re­mains a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic and pro­gres­sive so­ci­ety. We sub­scribe to the bal­lot not the bul­let." He said his Gov­ern­ment would use all re­sources avail­able to en­sure T&T re­mains a peace­ful na­tion.