Richard Lord

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the rev­e­la­tion of an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is a move in­tend­ed to ex­tend the state of emer­gency, which ex­pires on De­cem­ber 5. He said as the labour move­ment was mo­bil­is­ing to shut down the coun­try "with the im­pend­ing end of the emer­gency, the Gov­ern­ment again has pan­icked, has come up with this sto­ry about an as­sas­si­na­tion plot, which can­not stand pub­lic scruti­ny," he in­sist­ed. Row­ley said that was his im­pres­sion af­ter be­ing in­formed about the con­tents of the plot by Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mervyn Richard­son min­utes ear­li­er. The Op­po­si­tion Leader spoke with re­porters dur­ing a news con­fer­ence at the Op­po­si­tion Cau­cus Room at Tow­er D, Wa­ter­front Com­plex, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.

Stress­ing that he was pre­pared to breach the con­fi­den­tial de­tails of the al­leged plot, Row­ley said he was "not sat­is­fied that the Gov­ern­ment's ac­tion in the last 24 hours was in the na­tion's best in­ter­est." He said: "The Gov­ern­ment's ac­tion is hys­ter­i­cal, po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­di­en­cy and if I am to de­ter­mine a mo­tive, it is my view that the over­rid­ing mo­tive is aimed at ex­tend­ing a (the) state of emer­gency in a few days." Row­ley said the plot to kill Per­sad-Bisses­sar, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma was not iso­lat­ed. He said the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty must in­form the na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion of the facts about the Prime Min­is­ter's claim that the death threats were made by drug lords.

He said the Op­po­si­tion was not pre­pared to ac­cept from the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment "any fur­ther un­ex­plained neb­u­lous threat known on­ly to the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate, which will be kept se­cret while they put the coun­try through anx­i­ety and trau­ma and tar­nish the coun­try's pub­lic im­age." Row­ley then called on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy to ad­dress the na­tion. He said Sandy should "pro­vide the coun­try with sat­is­fac­to­ry and be­liev­able in­for­ma­tion to jus­ti­fy the ac­tions that the Gov­ern­ment has tak­en on this mat­ter." He added that this should be done to "al­lay cit­i­zens' fears and re­move their scep­ti­cism in treat­ing with the mat­ter at hand."

Row­ley said it was "un­ac­cept­able for the po­ten­tial tar­get of the threat, who has a po­lit­i­cal in­ter­est in fur­ther­ing this mat­ter, to be the spokesper­son and ad­vo­cate for this uniden­ti­fi­able threat." He said that was not democ­ra­cy in ac­tion. "The Gov­ern­ment owes an ex­pla­na­tion to the coun­try for the ac­tions of the prime min­is­ter," he added. He said any threat to a pub­lic of­fi­cial was a very se­ri­ous mat­ter, re­quir­ing se­ri­ous ac­tions. Row­ley al­so said Sandy "could stand ac­cused of seek­ing to mil­i­tarise out na­tion­al polic­ing arrange­ments, and the PNM finds that un­nec­es­sary and un­ac­cept­able." Row­ley raised con­cern over the place­ment of "snipers" on the roof of the Prime Min­is­ter's res­i­dence be­cause of the al­leged threat. He said that in light of the re­moval of se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras at the res­i­dence by the PP Gov­ern­ment.

"In the face of a neb­u­lous threat of as­sas­si­na­tion, we are por­trayed to the world as a sand-bagged coun­try...with armed-to-the-teeth snipers on to the Prime Min­is­ter's roof." Row­ley said that took place "at a time when I could say to­day, cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly, that the po­lice po­si­tion on this mat­ter does not square with the Prime Min­is­ter's po­si­tion." He quick­ly added: "If I am chal­lenged on this mat­ter in the fu­ture, I will demon­strate to the coun­try what I am say­ing. "The threat of reprisal by crim­i­nals (as claimed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar) does not square with the in­for­ma­tion," Row­ley said. "It is the PNM's view that what we are deal­ing with is a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion. "And we make a clear dis­tinc­tion be­tween in­for­ma­tion, ev­i­dence, ar­rest, charge and pros­e­cu­tion."

Row­ley said Sandy must make a state­ment on that mat­ter, fail­ing which he would "stand ac­cused of abus­ing the pow­ers that ex­ist un­der the state of emer­gency." He said if there was no ac­count­abil­i­ty for the re­cent de­ten­tion of at least 12 peo­ple, the im­age of the po­lice would be tar­nished again. He said the Op­po­si­tion was chal­leng­ing the $1.5 mil­lion worth of drugs re­cov­ered by po­lice since the state of emer­gency was de­clared in Au­gust. He said that fig­ure was in­flat­ed. He said that was done "as jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for an un­ex­plained state of emer­gency.

Row­ley said if the Gov­ern­ment at­tempt­ed to ex­tend the state of emer­gency next month, "we will vig­or­ous­ly op­pose it be­cause giv­en what is in front of us now, giv­en where the po­lice is on this mat­ter, we are go­ing to vig­or­ous­ly op­pose this." He said the Op­po­si­tion "will stand and ac­cuse the Gov­ern­ment of abus­ing its au­thor­i­ty with re­spect to the state of emer­gency pow­ers." He said the coun­try's in­ter­na­tion­al im­age was be­ing neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed by the mat­ter. "A plot is not a re­port," he said.

Cor­rec­tion

The T&T Guardian in­cor­rect­ly re­port­ed yes­ter­day, Sat­ur­day, that Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley was pre­pared to to breach the con­fi­den­tial de­tails of the al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Dr Row­ley ac­tu­al­ly told re­porters at the news con­fer­ence that he would not breach the con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of the meet­ing he had with Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, Mervyn Richard­son about the al­leged plot. Dr Row­ley in­sist­ed he would not re­veal the con­tents of the dis­cus­sions. The Guardian er­ror is re­gret­ted . We apol­o­gize to Dr Row­ley for the mis­take.