Richard Lord

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er says if any­one un­der him was linked to the es­tab­lish­ment of a new Fly­ing Squad with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice who­ev­er is re­spon­si­ble will be dealt with. Warn­er said that in an in­ter­view with re­porters be­fore a func­tion host­ed by the Mor­vant Fire Ser­vice Youth Club yes­ter­day. He main­tained that al­though he was not aware of any Fly­ing Squad be­ing re-es­tab­lished last year he would have to take ul­ti­mate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as min­is­ter. "Ul­ti­mate­ly the blame rests with the min­is­ter and if there are oth­er guys who are un­der me who are per­form­ing in a par­tic­u­lar way they shall be dealt with," Warn­er added.

He said notwith­stand­ing that he was "to­tal­ly un­aware of those de­vel­op­ments." Asked if he had any in­ten­tions of sub­mit­ting his res­ig­na­tion, Warn­er said: "You know I don't an­swer fool­ish ques­tions and there­fore I won't an­swer that ques­tion." He said his re­port, to be sub­mit­ted to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar by to­mor­row (Tues­day), was ready. He said he was await­ing a re­port from the Di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NSOC) Garvin Heera, who was ex­pect­ed to re­turn to T&T last night. Warn­er said he gave Heera 24-hours to sub­mit the re­port to him. "When he gives me his re­port, I shall put the two to­geth­er and give it to the Prime Min­is­ter, but my re­port is ready and it is a sim­ple one," Warn­er added.

He said the re­port would be avail­able to the PM in time for Thurs­day's Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.Told that the re­cent in­crease in po­lice/army have not stopped the in­ci­dence of mur­ders in the coun­try over the week­end, Warn­er said: "There is no mag­ic wand that any­one could raise to stop crime or even mur­ders,"He said he was pre­pared to do all he can for the time be­ing and re­mained con­fi­dent that mat­ter will be brought un­der con­trol.Told that there have been more than 70 mur­ders in 56 days, the min­is­ter said he was "very con­cerned and sad­dened by the wan­ton waste of life."

Warn­er said se­cu­ri­ty would have to be "dou­bled up" in the coun­try.He in­sist­ed he was not giv­ing up the fight against crime and crim­i­nals.Asked if he felt there was need for more dras­tic ac­tion to deal with crime, Warn­er said the PM re­cent­ly an­nounced plans to amend leg­is­la­tion to make firearms and cer­tain drug of­fences non-bail­able. He said those mea­sures were dras­tic enough.Warn­er said when­ev­er the crime hot spots were placed on lock­down crimes were com­mit­ted in oth­er ar­eas.He said the An­ti-Gang leg­is­la­tion was in full ef­fect and nine gang lead­ers are in prison. He said many more of those gang lead­ers would al­so be jailed.