Denyse Renne

For­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ters Paula Gopee-Scoon and Ralph Maraj say an ar­ti­cle which ap­peared on the Reuters Web site in­di­cat­ing that Daryan Warn­er was as­sist­ing the Fed­er­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion (FBI) and In­ter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice (IRS) in their in­ves­ti­ga­tions is of grave con­cern to this coun­try and its in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion.

Daryan, 45, is the son of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er and is cur­rent­ly in Flori­da.

Calls to the res­i­dence, yes­ter­day, were un­suc­cess­ful as the op­er­a­tor in­di­cat­ed "the num­ber is changed, dis­con­nect­ed or no longer in ser­vice."

Ac­cord­ing to the ar­ti­cle, which was writ­ten by jour­nal­ist Mark Ho­sen­ball, the younger Warn­er is as­sist­ing the FBI and IRS in their in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­leged cor­rup­tion in a case which in­volved the in­ter­na­tion­al gov­ern­ing body for soc­cer, Fi­fa. The ar­ti­cle said that Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er was al­so of in­ter­est in the case.

Fol­low­ing the ar­ti­cle go­ing vi­ral, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued a state­ment say­ing, "I will not re­ly on pub­lished re­ports in the me­dia, but will seek to get of­fi­cial cor­rob­o­ra­tion of the in­for­ma­tion now in the pub­lic do­main be­fore mak­ing any de­ter­mi­na­tion or pro­nounce­ment."

Pri­or to this state­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was asked to com­ment three weeks ago, af­ter an ex­clu­sive Sun­day Guardian in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­vealed there was a sealed in­dict­ment in­to in­ves­ti­ga­tions of mon­ey laun­der­ing, tax eva­sion and fraud in­volv­ing a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter.

At the time, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, "I would be very con­cerned about any­body's son, and in­deed if it was one of my min­is­ters."

She said then, how­ev­er, that she had "no in­for­ma­tion on any min­is­ter's son who is in any cir­cum­stances abroad.

"I have no such in­for­ma­tion, ad­vice or knowl­edge. I have asked..." Per­sad-Bisses­sar had said, though not in­di­cat­ing which agency, whether for­eign or lo­cal she sought an­swers from.

Maraj:

Jack should not have been ap­point­ed

Speak­ing with the Sun­day Guardian, Maraj, who served dur­ing the tenure De­cem­ber 1991-May 1995 un­der for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning said, "From what I read, it is a very se­ri­ous mat­ter for the na­tion and I join the se­ri­ous con­cerns peo­ple have with the con­tin­u­ance of Mr Warn­er in of­fice."

Maraj said in his opin­ion Warn­er "should not have been ap­point­ed" in the Gov­ern­ment, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the fact that Fi­fa al­le­ga­tions con­tin­ue to plague him.

He said that Per­sad-Bisses­sar knew of the al­le­ga­tions, yet still she has de­fend­ed Warn­er and the sit­u­a­tion has been al­lowed to con­tin­ue.

"This mat­ter with the FBI clear­ly points to the se­ri­ous na­ture of the sit­u­a­tion and im­pli­cates Mr Warn­er to a cer­tain ex­tent and she (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) can­not duck the is­sue any more," Maraj said.

Mak­ing his po­si­tion clear, Maraj said, "I'm not say­ing Mr Warn­er (J) is guilty," but there are al­le­ga­tions, sus­pi­cions and cause for con­cern over the en­tire mat­ter.

Point­ing out that Warn­er heads one of the most sen­si­tive min­istries which deals with in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing, Maraj said Warn­er need­ed to step aside from the Cab­i­net un­til "all is cleared up."

"It does this coun­try's in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion harm to have Mr Warn­er con­tin­ue to hold of­fice, while these clouds hang over him."

He should step aside–Gopee-Scoon

Gopee-Scoon al­so echoed Maraj's state­ments, say­ing that with the Reuters re­port one would be in­clined to be­lieve there are "some se­ri­ous in­ves­ti­ga­tions on­go­ing, which may in­volve the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty."

She said, "Ques­tions of in­tegri­ty are be­ing asked and we must keep in mind the port­fo­lio which Min­is­ter Warn­er holds."

Gopee-Scoon said the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry was one in which in­tegri­ty and char­ac­ter are key com­po­nents and Min­is­ter Warn­er "should step aside since it is im­pos­si­ble and dan­ger­ous for some­one like him who is man­ag­ing the po­lice ser­vice and oth­er se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies.

"It stands to rea­son, the on­ly thing Min­is­ter Warn­er needs to do is re­sign. He has been called to ac­count and can­not con­tin­ue to hold this po­si­tion. This Gov­ern­ment has done un­told dam­age to this coun­try," Gopee-Scoon said.

She said the PM should nev­er have ap­point­ed Warn­er as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter know­ing ful­ly well the con­stant al­le­ga­tions which sur­round­ed him with Fi­fa.

"I ex­pect with­in the next two days, the PM will an­nounce ei­ther Mr Warn­er has been fired or that he has re­signed," Gopee-Scoon said.

Min­is­ters mum, PM is the spokesman

Se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Gary Grif­fith, when con­tact­ed by Sun­day Guardian on whether he will be tak­ing any in­quiries to the FBI or IRS on be­half of the PM, said "Any­thing per­tain­ing to the mat­ter will be made by the Prime Min­is­ter."

Asked whether the PM had is­sued a gag on the mat­ter, Grif­fith said, "I think it's ba­sic com­mon sense and pro­to­col that the PM be the per­son to make state­ments."

Ef­forts to con­tact For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an were un­suc­cess­ful, as sev­er­al calls to his cell phone went unan­swered and voice mes­sages were not re­turned.

Calls to the cell phone of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan al­so went unan­swered.

CoP: I am not an­swer­ing any ques­tions

When Sun­day Guardian con­tact­ed act­ing CoP Stephen Williams and asked whether he made any in­quiries through In­ter­pol to as­cer­tain whether the re­ports on the Warn­ers were con­sis­tent, the top cop said, "I am not an­swer­ing any ques­tions."

Williams was al­so asked whether the PM or any gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial con­tact­ed him and asked that he probe the mat­ter.

His re­sponse: "I am not an­swer­ing any ques­tions posed to me...I have a chal­lenge with the me­dia...when I tell them X, they write Y.

"I have been very ac­com­mo­dat­ing with the me­dia and I am re-think­ing this. I al­ways make my­self avail­able to an­swer ques­tions. In fact, I have been the most ac­com­mo­dat­ing com­mis­sion­er.

"Right now, I am hav­ing dis­cus­sions with ed­i­tors to find out the best way to deal with ques­tions," Williams said.

Told sev­er­al mat­ters and the ques­tions posed to him were of na­tion­al in­ter­est, Williams agreed he has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to fur­nish the pub­lic with in­for­ma­tion, how­ev­er, "self preser­va­tion is im­por­tant."

"It's un­for­tu­nate that I have to spend time fix­ing the things the me­dia print wrong­ly," he said.

Fix­in' T&T wants PM to fix the is­sue

In a let­ter dat­ed March 11, 2013, Fix­in' T&T called on the PM to ad­dress the na­tion on pub­lished re­ports re­gard­ing the FBI and IRS probes.

"We again pub­licly call on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as chair­per­son of our Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil to im­me­di­ate­ly use all re­sources avail­able to her as the leader of a sov­er­eign na­tion to con­duct thor­ough and ef­fi­cient in­quiries in­to this mat­ter and re­port to the cit­i­zens of Trinidad & To­ba­go in a na­tion­al ad­dress."

The group said it wished to re­mind the PM such re­ports have ap­peared glob­al­ly and fur­ther cre­ates the po­ten­tial for our in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty to be com­pro­mised.

"The im­pli­ca­tions of these pub­lished re­ports mean that Trinidad and To­ba­go runs the risk of be­ing clas­si­fied as a pari­ah state if any of this is true.

If this oc­curs, it could mean that the Gov­ern­ment of T&T will not be trust­ed by the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to share in­for­ma­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly on se­cu­ri­ty is­sues."

Who can the PM ask?

It's very sim­ple if the PM wants to find out whether there is an FBI and IRS in­ves­ti­ga­tion in which Warn­er (D) is as­sist­ing and if Min­is­ter Warn­er is of in­ter­est in the case.Ac­cord­ing to Maraj, there are sev­er­al av­enues the PM, who heads the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, can ac­cess."The PM can have a pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion through the US Am­bas­sador here; she can al­so speak with the Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs," he said.Maraj said the PM can even ex­er­cise diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions for such in­quiries and can al­so use the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al at her dis­pos­al."It is a mat­ter of know­ing what she has avail­able...we have an em­bassy, we have In­ter­pol re­la­tions with the State. The ques­tion is: which will be more ef­fec­tive? So she has a range to choose from," Maraj said.

He al­so point­ed out that there is an FBI of­fice in Trinidad and the US agen­cies are not ob­lig­at­ed to brief T&T about their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.But, as PM, Maraj said, there can be some lev­el of di­a­logue which can be con­duct­ed.He said the sit­u­a­tion now presents Per­sad-Bisses­sar with an ex­cel­lent op­por­tu­ni­ty to demon­strate the se­ri­ous­ness which is lack­ing in her Gov­ern­ment."She can re­store some mea­sure of cred­i­bil­i­ty to her tenure if she takes such tough ac­tion. The more she de­lays, the deep­er the sus­pi­cion, that as far as she's con­cerned, Min­is­ter Warn­er is un­touch­able."