Shal­iza Has­sanali

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er says first-time of­fend­ers can choose ei­ther go to jail or fol­low the right path. He was speak­ing of Gov­ern­ment's pro­posed laws to fight crime. Af­ter a meet­ing with lead­ers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices on Fri­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Gov­ern­ment would bring to Par­lia­ment leg­is­la­tion for mak­ing the pos­ses­sion of firearms and the pos­ses­sion of drugs non-bail­able of­fences.

Warn­er said the pro­posed laws were worth a try. "This is a fight to the fin­ish which the crim­i­nals can­not win." Warn­er main­tained he has a crime plan. "If peo­ple are say­ing that I don't have a crime plan, then so be it. But at the end of the day, I re­main con­vinced that the plan we have will bear fruit. If it does not bear fruit then we as a na­tion will be in per­il."

Warn­er ap­pealed to law abid­ing cit­i­zens to work with law en­force­ment agen­cies. "I am con­vinced, there­fore, the no bail for hav­ing guns, am­mu­ni­tion and drugs.... we will in­crease the penal­ty. If peo­ple choose to go straight to prison, that is fine. We have a lot of room in the prison now. They have a choice to make. They could choose to go on the right side of the law and be­have as law abid­ing cit­i­zens or go on the wrong side and pay the price."

While Warn­er em­pathised with the be­head­ing of Learie Ce­bal­lo, he said it was not the first such in­ci­dent. "This was the third one. And whether it was the third, fourth or fifth, each one was as grue­some as you can imag­ine."