Warner: PNM seeking to destabilise country

National Security Minister Jack Warner has accused the People’s National Movement (PNM) of trying to destabilise the country with known criminals. Warner made the revelation during his contribution of the Defence Amendment Bill 2013 in Parliament on Friday. Warner said he received notes in his mailbox last month informing him of two meetings held by PNM agents at two locations last month.

One meeting was held in Maraval, under the chairmanship of a former minister of finance, while the other was in St Joseph chaired by a former pilot and CEO. The meeting in Maraval, Warner said, attracted high level politicians including a mayor and failed ministers. “However, what worries me is the meeting in Maracas St Joseph.”

Warner said at that meeting, a top class lawyer who was a former member of one of the PP’s partners had attended, along with 14 others. The meeting, Warner said, was held at the home of George Bell to tally the country’s murder rate which they had planned to advertise and send to the PNM overseas.

Questions also arose about funding for their plans. “I am advised that they had to regain the corridor (St Joseph) seat and they say what they will do and so on.” One of the attendees of that meeting, Warner said, was “Soldier Barry who has a long criminal record. “He was incarcerated for eight years and on trial for several murders.”

Barry, Warner said, was involved in an alleged plot to kill Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar in December 2011. “Barry said it was time to destabilise the country and discussed ways and means of doing so. When I come here and hear members whose party have agents whose intention is to destabilise the country, I am concerned.”