Akash Sama­roo

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Po­lit­i­cal Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley has lam­bast­ed both for­mer PNM at­tor­ney gen­er­al John Je­re­mie and fired Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) di­rec­tor Roger Best for sup­port­ing the UNC.

Ad­dress­ing hun­dreds of PNM sup­port­ers as the fea­tured speak­er at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing at the Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral Sec­ondary School Wednes­day evening, Row­ley launched in­to a di­a­tribe about Je­re­mie’s re­cent en­dorse­ment of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

“He was a dog in the PNM be­fore, and you all can’t call him that, I can call him that,” the for­mer prime min­is­ter al­leged.

He re­called a mo­ment in the past when he said Je­re­mie caused his fam­i­ly to cry. Row­ley ex­plained that Je­re­mie had 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 go home from Par­lia­ment, met my wife and daugh­ter in tears be­cause when they put that on the TV they pre­tend­ed to block out the name of the per­son, but my wife’s name was vis­i­ble. That is John Je­re­mie.”

He sought to re­mind Je­re­mie that the very same UNC, on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, said that he was un­fit to be at­tor­ney gen­er­al.

“I, too, came to that con­clu­sion. And that is why as I se­lect PNM peo­ple go­ing for­ward in my lead­er­ship he had to be where he was. That is the per­son who the UNC would col­lect and put on a plat­form to tell the coun­try that things so bad here that the on­ly sal­va­tion in this coun­try is to vote for the UNC,” Row­ley said.

He ques­tioned what would have drawn Je­re­mie to a UNC plat­form, as he claimed the for­mer AG was privy to the UNC’s “cor­rupt” ways.

He asked if Je­re­mie him­self could be prone to such con­duct.

“When you see John Je­re­mie ask him if the mat­ter with re­spect to Ish Gal­barans­ingh get­ting back his mon­ey in the Mi­a­mi case mat­ter, when they paid back mon­ey that they thief in the Pi­ar­co air­port, that the po­lice in­ves­ti­gat­ing, if he knows any­thing about it and if he got a lawyer yet?”

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

Re­spond­ing to the PNM leader’s claims yes­ter­day, Je­re­mie would on­ly tell Guardian Me­dia, “I am tak­ing care­ful note of every­thing that is be­ing said both on the plat­form and else­where. When I’m ready to deal with them, I will.”

The for­mer prime min­is­ter al­so re­buked for­mer SSA di­rec­tor, re­tired Ma­jor Roger Best.

At the meet­ing in Debe, Best, while wear­ing a UNC-brand­ed t-shirt, said he was not aligned with the par­ty but rather came to stand for democ­ra­cy and right­eous­ness.

On Wednes­day, Row­ley re­called the cir­cum­stances which led to Best’s re­moval in ear­ly March 2024.

“It came to my at­ten­tion...that the SSA was pen­e­trat­ed by peo­ple who were out­side of the agency and un­be­knownst to the Cab­i­net that the SSA was en­gag­ing in ac­tiv­i­ties that shall re­main undis­closed in pub­lic at this time.”

The for­mer head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil claimed Best was the same per­son who had made pay­ments for two sniper ri­fles with si­lencers.

Best was even­tu­al­ly ter­mi­nat­ed on May 18, 2024, and the po­lice ques­tioned him and three oth­ers con­cern­ing the al­leged trans­fer and il­le­gal pos­ses­sion of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion. The for­mer SSA di­rec­tor was not charged.

How­ev­er Row­ley said, “To this day, in­stead of an­swer­ing the ques­tion, as to how you come to buy that, with­out a bud­get to buy it, with­out the Cab­i­net’s ap­proval, and that is now a mat­ter which is at­tract­ing the at­ten­tion of the po­lice. But he could put on a UNC jer­sey and head to a pub­lic meet­ing to go and tell the coun­try, he is here to sup­port Mooni­lal.”

Best yes­ter­day said Row­ley was be­ing un­fair and un­eth­i­cal.

“Dr Row­ley is en­ti­tled to his opin­ion, the truth was nev­er in­ter­ro­gat­ed, and these are sen­si­tive mat­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty that should not be dis­cussed in the open air, and this was done in sev­er­al quar­ters and for its own pur­pose of course.”

He main­tained he is not po­lit­i­cal­ly af­fil­i­at­ed with the UNC but is a sup­port­er of Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

“At the end of the day when every­thing was go­ing awry and no one lis­tened or said any­thing, Dr Mooni­lal was the on­ly per­son who asked how I was go­ing. He asked if my fam­i­ly is okay and how we are cop­ing. He is the on­ly per­son who came and showed that he cared. He said he asked peo­ple about me and they said I was an up­stand­ing cit­i­zen and gen­tle­man and asked how I could be treat­ed like that. He even asked about my men­tal health,” Best said.