Shas­tri Boodan

Per­sons found guilty of spy­ing on pri­vate cit­i­zens will be pros­e­cut­ed, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said on Wednes­day evening. Speak­ing at a meet­ing of the par­lia­men­tary cau­cus of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) at the Rien­zi Com­plex, Cou­va, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her Gov­ern­ment re­mained com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing the pri­va­cy of cit­i­zens un­der de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rule.

She said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was un­der­way in­to al­leged wire­tap­ping by of­fi­cers of the se­cu­ri­ty In­tel­li­gence Agency (SIA). She added: "You will see what hap­pened in Par­lia­ment last Fri­day, the 'mac­co­ing' that was tak­ing place from the high­est of­fices in the land us­ing your tax­pay­ers dol­lars, the re­sources of the state, for il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty. "That mat­ter is be­fore se­ri­ous in­ves­ti­ga­tion and those who do the crime will have to do the time."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said lat­er to­day the In­ter­cep­tions of

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Bill would go be­fore Par­lia­ment. She said un­der that pro­posed leg­is­la­tion, on­ly a High Court judge would be al­lowed to or­der in­ter­cep­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tions. The Prime Min­is­ter said the wire­tap­ping of pri­vate cit­i­zens could not have been for the ben­e­fit of T&T. She said: "It must have been for the pur­pose of in­tim­i­da­tion. It must have been for the pur­pose of black­mail. Why else would you have been col­lect­ing in­for­ma­tion?" she asked.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment did not know what be­came of the in­for­ma­tion that was col­lect­ed. "I think that you are smart as any­body else and you would un­der­stand when you are tap­ping trade union­ists, Op­po­si­tion politi­cians, promi­nent per­sons in pub­lic life, among oth­ers, you were up to ab­solute­ly noth­ing good in this coun­try," she added. She said it must have been di­vine in­ter­ven­tion that an elec­tion was called two and one half years be­fore it was due. She urged UNC sup­port­ers to stand up and en­sure de­trac­tors did not de­rail the Gov­ern­ment.