Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) PRO Sen­a­tor Ani­ta Haynes claims the Peo­ples Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to have cer­tain Op­po­si­tion MPs ar­rest­ed ahead of the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions.

Haynes was re­spond­ing to state­ments by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young who said in an in­ter­view on Mon­day on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew that some sit­ting MPs are un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tions by the po­lice for ties in the crim­i­nal un­der­world. She de­scribed Young’s ut­ter­ances as “ir­re­spon­si­ble and reck­less”, adding that such sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion should not have en­tered the pub­lic do­main.

Haynes, an at­tor­ney, said Young ought to be aware that mat­ters be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by law en­force­ment of­fi­cers should not be pub­li­cised.

“The ques­tion is why bring that in­ves­ti­ga­tion to the pub­lic be­fore the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is com­plet­ed be­fore the po­lice have a chance to do their work? By say­ing that, what did he hope to ac­com­plish? If there is an on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion, chances are what he is do­ing is com­pro­mis­ing that in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” she said.

Haynes said Young was drop­ping “crumbs of in­for­ma­tion to cre­ate a po­lit­i­cal sto­ry. When it is all said and done one thing may not be re­lat­ed to an­oth­er. We don’t know at the end of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion if the po­lice would have some­thing to re­port on.”

She de­nied that any Op­po­si­tion MPs were in­volved with crim­i­nals el­e­ments.

On the is­sue of whether the in­tent was to have Op­po­si­tion MPs be­fore the courts lead­ing up to this year’s gen­er­al elec­tion, Haynes replied: “Ab­solute­ly! That is ba­si­cal­ly the trend that they would have been go­ing down.”

Last Feb­ru­ary, the UNC was locked in a war of words with Young over their de­ci­sion to fea­ture on their po­lit­i­cal plat­form Mal­one Hugh­es who was shot nine times while try­ing to save a woman. At a press con­fer­ence, Young had re­vealed that Hugh­es had at least 22 crim­i­nals charges pend­ing against him.

UNC’s deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Jear­lean John had said Hugh­es was spared for a rea­son but main­tained that she was un­aware of Hugh­es’ crim­i­nal back­ground.

John, who said she lives a life that could stand scruti­ny, added: “My point is, I have ab­solute­ly no in­ter­ac­tion with peo­ple who are law­less.”

She said fight­ing crime re­quires hard work which should not be politi­cised as Young has been do­ing. John said the PNM had de­monised the HDC’s Colour Me Or­ange pro­gramme which pro­vid­ed jobs for young peo­ple in HDC com­mu­ni­ties.

John, the UNC’s co­or­di­na­tor for La Hor­quet­ta /Tal­paro, said the poor be­lieve they are now in­vis­i­ble.

“Our young men are in cri­sis. You can­not leave some be­hind be­cause it would on­ly get worse. We have to build strong homes, strong fam­i­lies to have strong com­mu­ni­ties. If we don’t pay at­ten­tion to the crime cri­sis we are all go­ing to be in­volved in what is go­ing on. Every­one is a vic­tim now in this coun­try.”