Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

De­bate on the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (De­fence and Po­lice Com­plaints) Bill 2013 in the Sen­ate kept At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan so busy for the past two days that he did not have time to con­tact Unit­ed States au­thor­i­ties to find out de­tails of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion pos­si­bly in­volv­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and for­mer vice-pres­i­dent of Fi­fa Jack Warn­er.

Both Ram­lo­gan and For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an were in­struct­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to use diplo­mat­ic chan­nels to ob­tain de­tails about the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing the In­ter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice (IRS) and the Fed­er­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions (FBI).

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the re­quest af­ter there was more pub­lic out­cry over Warn­er hold­ing a po­si­tion in her Cab­i­net while such al­le­ga­tions con­tin­ued to swirl. The PM re­fused to act on calls for Warn­er's dis­missal, how­ev­er, say­ing she would wait un­til she could con­firm Reuters re­ports which in­di­cat­ed that Daryan Warn­er, the min­is­ter's son, was as­sist­ing the US au­thor­ites in the Fi­fa case in­volv­ing his fa­ther.

Con­tact­ed on his cell­phone yes­ter­day on whether he had re­ceived any feed­back from the US au­thor­i­ties, Ram­lo­gan said: "I'm in Par­lia­ment day and night and I haven't been able to check with the of­fice so I re­al­ly don't know. Call me to­mor­row (to­day)."On Tues­day, Ram­lo­gan had al­so said he could not com­ment be­cause he was busy in Par­lia­ment.

Dook­er­an al­so could not be reached for in­for­ma­tion on Warn­er yes­ter­day. A man who an­swered his cell­phone said he was en­gaged in meet­ings all day.The PM's na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er, Gary Grif­fith, said he, too, was steer­ing clear of the is­sue and did not want to make any kind of com­ment on the mat­ter.

Min­is­ter of Trans­port Chan­dresh Shar­ma al­so re­ferred ques­tions to Ram­lo­gan. Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter the launch of an avion­ics trainee en­gi­neer pro­gramme at the Avi­a­tion In­sti­tute in Cou­va, Shar­ma said: "The last time I checked, I was Min­is­ter of Trans­port and that ques­tion will be best di­rect­ed to the AG."Sev­er­al months ago, Warn­er de­nied he was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the IRS.

Say­ing he was the most ma­ligned politi­cian in T&T, on the week­end, Warn­er ac­cused po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents of try­ing to un­der­mine the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship coali­tion.A Reuters re­port last week quot­ed US law-en­force­ment sources as say­ing Daryan Warn­er had be­come a "co-op­er­at­ing wit­ness" in the FBI in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Since the sto­ry broke, sev­er­al calls have been made for Warn­er to be re­moved.

Leader of the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice David Ab­du­lah said the al­le­ga­tions against Warn­er were em­bar­rass­ing to the coun­try and warned that Per­sad-Bisses­sar would pay the ul­ti­mate po­lit­i­cal price if she did not re­move Warn­er.