Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Con­gress of the Peo­ple po­lit­i­cal leader Prakash Ra­mad­har is de­mand­ing a pub­lic apol­o­gy from Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er over al­le­ga­tions that COP mem­ber Ver­non De Li­ma, SC, was part of a se­cret meet­ing to destab­lise the coun­try.Yes­ter­day, Ra­mad­har, backed by his par­ty's na­tion­al coun­cil, ral­lied around De Li­ma in deny­ing Warn­er's state­ment made dur­ing Fri­day's de­bate on the con­tentious De­fence (Amend­ment) Bill 2013.

He said the na­tion­al coun­cil had passed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing on Warn­er to with­draw his state­ments and pub­licly apol­o­gise to De Li­ma.Ad­dress­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence af­ter the par­ty's na­tion­al coun­cil meet­ing at COP's Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre in Char­lieville, Ra­mad­har dis­missed Warn­er's al­le­ga­tions.

Speak­ing in the Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, Warn­er al­leged that De Li­ma, whom he de­scribed as a for­mer COP mem­ber, was present at a se­cret meet­ing with PNM agents where the state­ment was made "now is the time to desta­bilise the coun­try."The state­ment led to up­roar in the House, with Speak­er Wade Mark or­der­ing Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Dr Amery Browne out of the Par­lia­men­tary Cham­ber for three hours.

Yes­ter­day, Ra­mad­har said he has known De Li­ma all of his pro­fes­sion­al life and he "has al­ways lived his life pro­fes­sion­al­ly and in his pri­vate ca­pac­i­ty, as a per­son who is a true pa­tri­ot of this na­tion and a man of ex­em­plary char­ac­ter and rep­u­ta­tion.""The par­ty is very trou­bled that al­le­ga­tions of such grav­i­ty and mag­ni­tude could be made against any cit­i­zen and par­tic­u­lar in the cir­cum­stance of Mr De Li­ma, he be­ing a past par­ty deputy chair­man and ac­tive mem­ber of the par­ty," Ra­mad­har said.

"We think that the in­jus­tice of that state­ment should be dealt with," Ra­mad­har de­clared.He said De Li­ma wrote to the coun­cil about the mat­ter, deny­ing at­tend­ing any such meet­ing.Ra­mad­har said he will be cor­re­spond­ing with House Speak­er Mark to en­sure a cor­rec­tion is made to the Hansard on that "grave er­ror that oc­curred in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day."

COP wants Warn­er to apol­o­gize

The COP leader said he was "op­ti­mistic" Warn­er would apol­o­gise for the state­ment, but has­tened to add he could not speak for Warn­er. He as­sured the par­ty will be look­ing at its oth­er op­tions in deal­ing with the mat­ter if an apol­o­gy is not forth­com­ing."Mr De Li­ma, he has in­di­cat­ed to us in writ­ing that he was not present any such meet­ing and that he is a cur­rent mem­ber of the COP," he said."I would on­ly imag­ine that an apol­o­gy would be not dif­fi­cult in the sit­u­a­tion."

Ra­mad­har said if the apol­o­gy is not made he will re­turn to the na­tion­al coun­cil to seek a way for­ward.The COP leader al­so ex­pressed con­cern af­ter a Sun­day Guardian in­ves­ti­ga­tion which re­vealed a min­is­ter's son is un­der house ar­rest in the US and is al­so as­sist­ing the Fed­er­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions (FBI) and the In­ter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice (IRS) with in­ves­ti­ga­tions. He said he was wait­ing with "bat­ed breath" for more in­for­ma­tion on this mat­ter.

"It is ex­treme­ly se­ri­ous and I imag­ine quite ur­gent," he said.He de­clined fur­ther com­ment since he said for­eign au­thor­i­ties were yet to re­lease in­for­ma­tion on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. How­ev­er, he as­sured the COP will not re­main silent on the is­sue when ma­te­r­i­al per­ti­nent to the al­le­ga­tions are re­leased.At­tempts to con­tact Warn­er yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful, as calls to his cell­phone went unan­swered and he did not re­turn calls or re­spond to voice mes­sages.