Akash Sama­roo

Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), Dr Kei­th Row­ley, has slammed both for­mer Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) di­rec­tor Roger Best and for­mer PNM At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie for their sup­port of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

But while he ex­pressed con­tempt for their shift in al­le­giance, Row­ley said he un­der­stood it—claim­ing that “one must be of in­ter­est to the po­lice” to be drawn to the UNC.

Speak­ing to hun­dreds of sup­port­ers at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing at the Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral Sec­ondary School on Wednes­day night, Row­ley launched in­to a fiery con­dem­na­tion of Je­re­mie, who re­cent­ly en­dorsed the UNC.

Re­call­ing a painful per­son­al mo­ment, Row­ley ac­cused Je­re­mie of leak­ing a dam­ag­ing and false doc­u­ment about his wife.

“He was a dog in the PNM be­fore, and you all can’t call him that—I can,” the Po­lit­i­cal Leader de­clared.

He con­tin­ued, “Je­re­mie gen­er­at­ed a doc­u­ment that was broad­cast on na­tion­al TV, al­leg­ing that the wife of a high-rank­ing PNM min­is­ter had a Cay­man Is­lands bank ac­count with $40 mil­lion in it. I went home from Par­lia­ment and met my wife and daugh­ter in tears. They tried to block out the name on TV, but my wife’s name was vis­i­ble. That was John Je­re­mie.”

Row­ley re­mind­ed the au­di­ence that the UNC had once de­clared Je­re­mie un­fit to be At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

“I came to that con­clu­sion too. That’s why, un­der my lead­er­ship, he had to be where he was—not any­where near se­lec­tion.”

“And now,” Row­ley con­tin­ued, “the UNC would col­lect him, put him on a plat­form, and have him tell the coun­try that the on­ly sal­va­tion is to vote UNC.”

He ques­tioned what could have led Je­re­mie to the UNC, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en his knowl­edge of the par­ty’s al­leged mis­con­duct.

“Ask him about the mat­ter in­volv­ing Ish Gal­barans­ingh and the re­turn of stolen funds in the Mi­a­mi case—the same Pi­ar­co Air­port mon­ey the po­lice are still in­ves­ti­gat­ing. Ask him if he got a lawyer yet.”

“You un­der­stand why he is with the UNC? Be­cause you have to be of in­ter­est to the po­lice.”

Row­ley then turned his at­ten­tion to Roger Best, the for­mer SSA di­rec­tor who re­cent­ly ap­peared on a UNC plat­form in sup­port of in­cum­bent Oropouche East MP Dr. Roodal Mooni­lal.

Best, who wore a UNC-brand­ed t-shirt at the event in Debe, said he was not aligned with the par­ty but had come to stand for democ­ra­cy and right­eous­ness.

Row­ley scoffed at the state­ment and re­mind­ed sup­port­ers why Best was re­moved in ear­ly March 2024.

“It came to my at­ten­tion that the SSA had been in­fil­trat­ed by ex­ter­nal ac­tors and was en­gag­ing in unau­tho­rized ac­tiv­i­ties—ac­tiv­i­ties that re­main clas­si­fied. As head of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty coun­cil, I had to act.”

He dis­closed that Best had au­tho­rized the pur­chase of two sniper ri­fles with si­lencers with­out Cab­i­net ap­proval.

“The Cab­i­net nev­er ap­proved the SSA to be armed with au­to­mat­ic weapons,” Row­ley stat­ed.

Best was placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave along­side re­tired Brigadier Gen­er­al An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer, who had been re­called from Wash­ing­ton to take over. Best was even­tu­al­ly ter­mi­nat­ed on May 18, 2024, and ques­tioned by po­lice re­gard­ing the al­leged trans­fer and il­le­gal pos­ses­sion of firearms. He was not charged.

“But to this day,” Row­ley said, “he has nev­er an­swered how he came to buy those weapons—with­out a bud­get, with­out ap­proval—and now that’s at­tract­ing po­lice at­ten­tion. Yet he puts on a UNC jer­sey and goes to a pub­lic meet­ing to sup­port Mooni­lal.”

“And is them so who look­ing to be in Par­lia­ment,” he added.

Row­ley con­tin­ued his broad­side against the UNC, claim­ing it is “a mag­net for peo­ple who the po­lice are look­ing for.” He named sev­er­al UNC fig­ures in­clud­ing Dr. Roodal Mooni­lal, Ravi Rati­ram, Anil Roberts, David Lee, and Jear­lean John, al­leg­ing they lack in­tegri­ty.

He al­so lashed out at for­mer FI­FA Vice Pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er.

“The next one is the in­ter­na­tion­al scamp called Jack Warn­er. He’s walk­ing the roads of this coun­try, es­cort­ing and rec­om­mend­ing can­di­dates. Have you peo­ple in this coun­try lost your cot­ton-pick­ing minds?”

Row­ley end­ed his speech with a warn­ing about Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship, stat­ing:

“The fact that she em­braces peo­ple like Je­re­mie and Best proves she is the most dan­ger­ous per­son ever to as­pire to lead­er­ship in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s his­to­ry.”