Leader of Government Business Dr Roodal Moonilal says the People’s Partnership (PP) is not afraid of Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner’s threat to release secret tapes of wrongdoing by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and party officials.
In fact, he thinks Warner is bluffing and the threat will come to nought.
Questioned about the threat in Parliament yesterday, Moonilal told reporters the Government was not fearful of Warner, but he warned Warner to stay away from the PM.
“I never saw him as a threat and that was before the 14-count indictment,” Moonilal said.
During a cottage meeting of his Independent Liberal Party (ILP) at Endeavour Road, Chaguanas, on Thursday night, Warner had promised to expose Persad-Bissessar’s wrongdoings.
Saying he felt his life was now threatened, he said he planned to distribute tapes of the wrongdoing to lawyers for the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ), People’s National Movement (PNM), ILP and his own attorney, adding he will make certain revelations about Persad-Bissessar from next month.
“Everything I have against Kamla, I will bring it out,” Warner told supporters, adding he was upset that Persad-Bissessar’s Government had done all it could to ensure he was jailed following his court appearance on Wednesday and that the PM had also denied he funded the party’s election campaigns.
Yesterday, Moonilal said he felt Warner’s one night in jail on Wednesday would have “calmed him down and allowed him to reflect on his own mortality, political and otherwise, but last night and today he comes with the same recklessness and mauvais langue.”
“That is why we have to, in a way, discount him now,” Moonilal said.
He said the PM and the Government was not afraid of Warner’s so-called tapes, as he was “known historically for having blank tapes, empty envelopes and files.”
But he said Warner should be more concerned about the legal matters being brought against him and the Fifa executives by the United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch and not Persad-Bissessar.
He said Warner had seven questions for the Government in Parliament yesterday and “the United States government has 14 questions for him, so he should really concentrate on Loretta E Lynch and leave Kamla Persad-Bissessar alone.”
Stacy defends self
Warner is now wanted in the US to answer charges of racketeering, money laundering and other alleged offences in connection with his tenure as a Fifa executive. He is expected to re-appear in court on July 9.
Moonilal said he did not know “who in the world today, across the globe is prepared to believe Mr Warner, Mr Blatter (re-elected Fifa president) and Mr Webb (former Concacaf president) and others. I don’t know who will believe them today.”
He said after getting reports of Warner’s statements on Thursday “all I am prepared to tell Jack is that his problem is not Kamla, it is Loretta and he should focus on that.”
Warner’s claim about Roopnarine’s involvement in some questionable meeting between Persad-Bissessar and contractors, he said, was also ludicrous. Roopnarine also dismissed Warner’s claim, saying such a meeting never took place.
Moonilal said Warner’s statements at the meeting also reflected “a sad ending to a public life.”