Yvonne Ba­boolal

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley is threat­en­ing to re­port Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) if, in five days, he does not re­verse his po­si­tion that the po­lice will not in­ves­ti­gate sus­pend­ed FI­FA vice-pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er. Gibbs, af­ter a meet­ing with the PSC last Tues­day, said the po­lice would not in­ves­ti­gate bribery al­le­ga­tions against Warn­er un­til they re­ceived rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion. Row­ley sent out the warn­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Op­po­si­tion Leader's Of­fice,Charles Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. He said: "I'm giv­ing him (Gibbs) five days to re­verse his po­si­tion or we will re­port him to the PSC. The CoP has to re­port to some­body. "If the ex­ec­u­tive is not pre­pared to pro­tect the State, the Op­po­si­tion is not with­out op­tions," Row­ley not­ed.

Those op­tions al­so in­clud­ed the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, he dis­closed.

Told that Gibbs stat­ed his po­si­tion on the Warn­er af­fair in the pres­ence of the PSC chair­man Pro­fes­sor Ramesh De­osaran, Row­ley said:, "We don't want to prej­u­dice how the PSC would act." He said the Op­po­si­tion was in full praise of De­osaran when he was ap­point­ed PSC chair­man. Row­ley said the CoP had tak­en an ir­re­spon­si­ble po­si­tion that was tan­ta­mount to dere­lic­tion of du­ty. He won­dered if it was a case of a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, un­der se­ri­ous threats of dis­missal, be­ing cowed by cir­cum­stances and fright­ened by the un­pleas­ant out­come of an in­quiry. Row­ley added: "A Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice has no du­ty to pro­tect any­body's po­lit­i­cal as­cen­dan­cy or demise."

He re­called that Gibbs was part of an en­tourage that turned up with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at a Car­ni­val fete in Mo­ka, Mar­aval, last year. "It is an im­prop­er use of the of­fice of the CoP to be coat-tail­ing the PM at a Car­ni­val fete," he charged. Row­ley stressed that the Op­po­si­tion was not seek­ing to get any­one pros­e­cut­ed for bribery. He said it was pure­ly a mat­ter of pos­si­ble non-com­pli­ance with laws. "This is not a Jack Warn­er thing. He just hap­pens to be the per­son in­volved," he said. PNM Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds, who was al­so present at yes­ter­day's press con­fer­ence, had writ­ten Gibbs on June 6 ask­ing him to state whether he had be­gun or in­tends to ini­ti­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the al­le­ga­tions against Warn­er. Hinds said his con­cern was lim­it­ed to a like­li­hood of a breach of laws, in­clud­ing the Ex­change and Con­trol Act, the Cus­toms Act and, gen­er­al­ly, crim­i­nal laws re­lat­ing to bribery. He said sums, amount­ing to US$1 mil­lion, were dis­trib­uted by way of bribes to par­tic­i­pants at a Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) del­e­ga­tion meet­ing. He said it was al­leged the mon­ey was im­prop­er­ly im­port­ed.

At yes­ter­day's con­fer­ence, Hinds said it was with "shock, con­ster­na­tion and hor­ror" that he read Gibbs' re­sponse. "For the CoP to take a very cool, Caribbean and breezy pos­ture is re­al­ly mind-blow­ing." he added. Hinds said the law dic­tat­ed that there must be a writ­ten de­c­la­ra­tion for mon­ey or goods over US$5,000 that were im­port­ed in­to the coun­try. He said the penal­ty for breach­ing that law was the pay­ment of three times the amount of mon­ey or three years' im­pris­on­ment. "There is enough in the pub­lic do­main to trig­ger an in­ves­ti­ga­tion (in­to the al­le­ga­tions against Warn­er)," he said. When con­tact­ed, the of­fice of the com­mis­sion­er re­ferred the T&T Guardian to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry's com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist Sharon Lee As­sang. As­sang said she was in Moru­ga and did not know if the com­ment by Row­ley was re­al­ly made and in what con­text. She said to send an e-mail on the mat­ter to her which she would for­ward to the com­mis­sion­er's of­fice.