Threats against those who hold the high­est of­fices in this coun­try—while al­ways alarm­ing—are not new.

On Fri­day evening, while speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment post-Bud­get pub­lic meet­ing in Bel­mont, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said there were two as­sas­sins hired to kill him in the lead up to the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tions. Row­ley said both as­sas­sins re­fused the job and re­port­ed­ly gave him in­for­ma­tion about the plots.

The Sun­day Guardian com­piled a list of pub­licly not­ed threats against politi­cians.

• In 1999, chair­man of the Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Han­sraj Sumairs­ingh re­port­ed to then prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day that some­one had threat­ened to kill him. Sumairs­ingh was mur­dered by as­sas­sins on De­cem­ber 31, 1999, in Ma­yaro.

In 2000, then lo­cal gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Dhan­raj Singh was fired by Pan­day. He was lat­er charged with hir­ing two men to kill Sumairs­ingh but was freed on that charge in Oc­to­ber 2003, af­ter spend­ing two years in jail.

• In 2002, there were re­ports of threats made against then leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Bas­deo Pan­day and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Car­los John.

•In Ju­ly 2004, there were me­dia re­ports that death threats were made to the pres­i­dent Geroge Maxwell Richards, prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, at­tor­ney gen­er­al John Je­re­mie and min­is­ters Ken­neth Val­ley, Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Colm Im­bert. How­ev­er, Man­ning, Je­re­mie, Val­ley, Row­ley and Im­bert all re­fut­ed the claims that they had been threat­ened. At that time, the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen was fin­gered as the par­ty re­spon­si­ble for the threats but leader Yasin Abu Bakr fierce­ly de­nied any con­nec­tion to the al­leged threats.

•In Ju­ly 2009, then prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning re­vealed that an “un­named or­gan­i­sa­tion” had tried to car­ry out a plot to kill him in 2008. Man­ning said his wife, then lo­cal gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Hazel Man­ning was told of the plan to as­sas­si­nate him in her of­fice in Ju­ly 2008. Man­ning said two days lat­er, a marked po­lice ve­hi­cle tried to “peel off” one of the cars from his se­cu­ri­ty de­tail as he and Hazel were head­ed to the gym. Man­ning said he did not make the at­tempt on his life pub­lic as it hap­pened just three days short of the an­niver­sary of the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup.

"Had it been re­port­ed, I as­sure you, there would have been blood­shed that morn­ing and cer­tain peo­ple would have been killed, there is no ques­tion about it,” Man­ning said.

• In 2011, act­ing prime min­is­ter Er­rol McLeod said he was re­ceiv­ing death threats via texts to his cell­phone. McLeod, who was al­so the Labour Min­is­ter at the time, said the threats were as a re­sult of his moves to tack­le cor­rup­tion with­in the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP

•In No­vem­ber 2011, threats were made against then prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and three of her se­nior Cab­i­net mem­bers. At that time, for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day said politi­cians were known to cre­ate “all kinds of ruse” when they face crit­i­cism for non-per­for­mance. Pan­day con­firmed then that when he was prime min­is­ter, threats were made against his life but said he nev­er made them pub­lic. On No­vem­ber 25, 2011, 13 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with the threats to kill Per­sad-Bisses­sar at a se­cret train­ing camp in east Trinidad. At the time of the ar­rests, the group was al­leged­ly get­ting ready to car­ry out an as­sas­si­na­tion at­tempt against Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

•On Au­gust 9, 2015, while on the cam­paign trail in To­ba­go, PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley told his sup­port­ers at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing, “First time in Trinidad and To­ba­go the Op­po­si­tion Leader is un­der at­tack from the Gov­ern­ment and when I am not un­der at­tack from their friends who they hire to kill me, I am un­der at­tack from their friends who they hire to lie about me."

In re­sponse days lat­er, then prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar rub­bished Row­ley’s al­le­ga­tions that her gov­ern­ment had hired some­one to kill him, say­ing his state­ments were reck­less and dan­ger­ous. She said Row­ley should re­port his claims to the po­lice.

•In No­vem­ber 2018, four death threats were made to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith.

The threats were made via anony­mous calls to the E999 Com­mand Cen­tre. The life of Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was al­so threat­ened by an anony­mous caller min­utes af­ter the fourth threat against Grif­fith was record­ed.

The TTPS is­sued a re­lease the next day, mak­ing the threats pub­lic. Two peo­ple were ar­rest­ed for mak­ing threats against Grif­fith via phone call.