Yes­ter­day evening, more than four hours af­ter se­nior min­is­ter Jack Warn­er was sus­pend­ed from his post as a vice-pres­i­dent of FI­FA, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter is­sued a state­ment in which Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that she will stand by Warn­er: It is a fun­da­men­tal tenet of the rule of law that a man is in­no­cent un­til proven guilty. This right is en­shrined in the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go and is an im­por­tant pil­lar in our sys­tem of jus­tice. And so, the de­ci­sion by FI­FA to ini­ti­ate a "pro­vi­sion­al sus­pen­sion" of its vice-pres­i­dent, Jack Warn­er, pend­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion is not a de­ter­mi­na­tion of guilt but part of a process that we trust will be fair and un­prej­u­diced.

A "pro­vi­sion­al sus­pen­sion" is not to be equat­ed with a find­ing of guilt, far less a sen­tence based on a find­ing of wrong do­ing. The process must now be al­lowed to go its full course since as I said, a per­son is pre­sumed in­no­cent un­til proven guilty. FI­FA is an in­ter­na­tion­al sport body that is not part of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go; we there­fore have no knowl­edge about its pro­ce­dures and the dy­nam­ics of its unique in­ter­nal pol­i­tics. It would be un­for­tu­nate if we made pre­ma­ture ad­verse judg­ment and pro­nounce­ment on a mat­ter that is un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion. This would be con­trary to the spir­it and let­ter of the laws of our land. I am ful­ly aware that events like this in­volv­ing a se­nior cab­i­net min­is­ter will be of im­mense con­cern to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Like­wise, I am con­cerned by the al­le­ga­tions made and ex­pect an up­date from Mr Warn­er up­on his re­turn, which he has as­sured he will do. At this time, there is no rea­son for me to ar­rive at any con­clu­sion re­gard­ing the al­le­ga­tions made against Mr Warn­er. A "son of our soil" who served this na­tion faith­ful­ly at that very foot­ball or­gan­i­sa­tion and who was in­stru­men­tal in lead­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go to its very first World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion just a few years ago must be al­lowed every op­por­tu­ni­ty to present his case against the al­le­ga­tions made about him. Con­se­quent­ly, at this time I will not pre­judge the al­le­ga­tions against Min­is­ter Warn­er, and un­til there is ev­i­dence to the con­trary, I stand by him.