Warn­er grilled by sen­ate

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er says he aban­doned plans to es­tab­lish a new Fly­ing Squad be­cause it was not sup­port­ed by act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams.Warn­er said so in re­sponse to a ques­tion on yes­ter­day's Sen­ate Or­der Pa­per from Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds.Warn­er re­peat­ed sev­er­al times yes­ter­day he was not aware of any moves to re-es­tab­lish the unit.

"I made no promis­es. I said I would ex­plore it and I did. I dis­cussed it with the (act­ing) Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and based on his ad­vice, the idea was aban­doned," he said.Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had asked Williams to probe al­le­ga­tions of the re-es­tab­lish­ment of the squad in the Po­lice Ser­vice last year.Ear­li­er the Op­po­si­tion re­fused to al­low the Gov­ern­ment to de­bate the De­fence (Amend­ment) Bill in the Sen­ate next Tues­day as it was Pri­vate Mem­bers Day.

House Leader Gan­ga Singh then said the leg­is­la­tion, which seeks to give sol­diers po­lice pow­ers of ar­rest, would be de­bat­ed in the Up­per House on April 2.The bill al­ready has been ap­proved in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.