CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is threat­en­ing to take le­gal ac­tion against Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and the me­dia, over state­ments the PM made dur­ing the week­end.

In a state­ment, she said:

"I have nev­er in my life ac­cused one race of com­mit­ting crim­i­nal at­tacks against an­oth­er race in our coun­try. Not late­ly, not now and not ever! Should an apol­o­gy and re­trac­tion not be pre­sent­ed, I will be tak­ing le­gal ac­tion against Kei­th Row­ley for ut­ter­ing those false, defam­a­to­ry state­ments and all me­dia hous­es and re­porters who dis­sem­i­nat­ed said state­ments."

Mrs Per­sad Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day in To­co, Dr Row­ley showed that he is a "des­per­ate and dis­hon­est man, whose game is up."

She said the Prime Min­is­ter must know that racial ten­sions can be in­cit­ed by false­ly ac­cus­ing her of mak­ing this di­vi­sive state­ment.

"It is most ir­re­spon­si­ble. It is dan­ger­ous and down­right nasty pol­i­tics. It is al­so defam­a­to­ry of my char­ac­ter and flies in the face of my many years in pol­i­tics, where I have al­ways cel­e­brat­ed our na­tion­al uni­ty and our har­mo­nious di­ver­si­ty," she said in the state­ment re­leased to­day.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader wants Dr Row­ley to know that the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty are not fools, point­ing out that the peo­ple are watch­ing him, look­ing at the an­tics of a what she de­scribed as “a des­per­ate man”.

"I want Kei­th Row­ley to know that the lie he told about me yes­ter­day will not stand up in a court of law or the court of pub­lic opin­ion. I call up­on Kei­th Row­ley to do the right and re­spon­si­ble thing and apol­o­gize. He must set the record straight and ad­mit that what was said was false and ma­li­cious," she stat­ed.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so said that she is ex­treme­ly con­cerned that some me­dia hous­es car­ried “that bla­tant lie with­out first speak­ing to me or at­tempt­ing to get my com­ments. Did these me­dia hous­es know that that state­ment by Kei­th Row­ley was false but still per­sist­ed in dis­sem­i­nat­ing it?"

She then quot­ed the first para­graph of a me­dia re­lease she is­sued on Thurs­day 27 April 2023.

“Crime does not dis­crim­i­nate. The vic­tims and per­pe­tra­tors of crime span all po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions, eth­nic­i­ties, re­li­gions, so­cial stand­ings, and in­come lev­els. No mat­ter which sec­tor of so­ci­ety we iden­ti­fy with, we must have the hu­mil­i­ty to ac­cept this fact, put aside emo­tions and work to­geth­er for all our cit­i­zens. All cit­i­zens must equal­ly feel safe in Trinidad and To­ba­go," the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s re­lease from April 27 had stat­ed.

Mrs Per­sad Bisses­sar said that para­graph was sent to all me­dia hous­es and un­equiv­o­cal­ly con­tra­dicts the state­ment ut­tered by Dr Kei­th Row­ley at the PNM event in To­co.

"These me­dia hous­es who pon­tif­i­cate with ed­i­to­ri­als call­ing for high­er stan­dards in pub­lic life, should them­selves be more re­spon­si­ble in their re­port­ing. I there­fore, call up­on those me­dia hous­es who re­played and dis­sem­i­nat­ed Row­ley’s false state­ment as­cribed to me, to sim­i­lar­ly apol­o­gize and cor­rect the griev­ous harm that has been done to my char­ac­ter and my rep­u­ta­tion," she said.

She said should an apol­o­gy and re­trac­tion not be pre­sent­ed, she will be tak­ing le­gal ac­tion against Dr Row­ley for ut­ter­ing those "false state­ments" and all me­dia hous­es and re­porters who dis­sem­i­nat­ed said state­ments.

"I wish to re­mind all of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to not let the des­per­a­tion of a Gov­ern­ment stir up po­lit­i­cal strife and ha­tred at this crit­i­cal junc­ture in our his­to­ry,” she said. “We are see­ing the worst in this gov­ern­ment. They try to dis­tract from run­away crime, brazen cor­rup­tion, lazi­ness and just plain in­com­pe­tence.”

Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: “Mean­while, our sons and daugh­ters in T&T cry out for jus­tice, jobs and the abil­i­ty to live and work in a func­tion­ing democ­ra­cy.”