Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last night side­stepped all ques­tions on the con­tro­ver­sial Sec­tion 34 and the fir­ing of jus­tice min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney. In­stead she ad­vised the me­dia that Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er, who at­tend­ed last Thurs­day's Cab­i­net meet­ing with Vol­ney pri­or to Vol­ney's fir­ing, would be speak­ing on the mat­ter.

When con­front­ed in the com­pound of the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya, where he at­tend­ed a T&T Po­lice Youth Club Ex­trav­a­gan­za with the PM, Warn­er ad­mit­ted that he was there when the PM met Vol­ney pri­or to his sack­ing. Vol­ney on Fri­day said he quit be­fore he was fired. "I was there when the PM met Vol­ney...I was there in the Cab­i­net meet­ing and what was said was not a rec­ol­lec­tion of the mat­ter. I will leave it like that," said Warn­er.

Vol­ney's face­book page posts state­ment on dis­missal, Jack Warn­er and PM re­sponds

Ques­tioned if Vol­ney was not speak­ing the truth, Warn­er said, "I nev­er said so. My rec­ol­lec­tion is oth­er­wise." Warn­er said he went to Vol­ney's home as a friend to em­pathise with him. "We spent an half an hour dis­cussing...and we dis­cussed cer­tain mat­ters. He made cer­tain is­sues of how we would treat with the sit­u­a­tion and I am look­ing to see how that works out."

When asked if At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan had at­tend­ed an Au­gust 9 Cab­i­net meet­ing, Warn­er replied, "I don't re­call the AG was there. I haven't checked the records so I can't say." Told that the AG re­turned to the coun­try on Au­gust 4, Warn­er said, the me­dia had all the records and was still ask­ing him. "I re­al­ly don't know."

Asked if the AG's re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to read all Cab­i­net notes, Warn­er sug­gest­ed that the me­dia di­rect this ques­tion to Ram­lo­gan. "I can't an­swer for the AG." Ques­tioned if he was aware of com­ments post­ed yes­ter­day on Vol­ney's Face­book page, which crit­i­cised the AG, Warn­er said he has nev­er and will nev­er re­spond to com­ments on Face­book.