"This is a cat­e­gor­i­cal lie."

That's how Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­spond­ed Tues­day to a claim by Carl­ton Den­nie, a man cit­ed as a for­mer di­rec­tor of the Strate­gic Ser­vice Agency (SSA), that he was asked by the gov­ern­ment to fire all East In­di­ans in the SSA.

Den­nie told a UNC meet­ing in Debe on Mon­day night: "I am the per­son that they asked to fire all the East In­di­ans from the SSA. I told them no. I re­mind­ed Row­ley and the then Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty (Ed­mund) Dil­lon, that in this coun­try, every creed and race must find an equal place. I told them no. I am not fir­ing In­di­ans."

Based on that com­ment, the prime min­is­ter told a news con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre Tues­day morn­ing, that he want­ed to share in­for­ma­tion con­tained in a se­cret na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty doc­u­ment, that re­lat­ed to Den­nie.

The prime min­is­ter is head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

"It war­rants me to bring ev­i­dence to prove that that state­ment is dan­ger­ous...it is a lie and the per­son who put him on a plat­form is al­so dan­ger­ous," Dr Row­ley said.

The doc­u­ment he read from was dat­ed Oc­to­ber 23, 2009, while Dr Row­ley was a Par­lia­ment back­bencher in the Patrick Man­ning Gov­ern­ment and held no Cab­i­net port­fo­lio.

The claims in the doc­u­ment read by the prime min­is­ter were that while serv­ing as the head of a de­part­ment at the SSA, sug­gest­ed that "this em­ploy­ee has dis­played re­peat­ed­ly, un­ac­cept­able forms of be­hav­iour" which in­clud­ed in­sub­or­di­na­tion, task avoid­ance, and in­cite­ful and dis­rup­tive ac­tiv­i­ty.

It rec­om­mend­ed that Den­nie's con­tract not be re­newed.

"Some­how he man­aged to get con­tract ex­tend­ed," Dr Row­ley added.

He con­tin­ued: "I have nev­er had any in­ter­ac­tion what­so­ev­er with Mr Den­nie. I have checked the records this morn­ing in my ca­pac­i­ty as prime min­is­ter, to end of the year of 2015 (Mr Den­nie served there for four months). Mr Den­nie nev­er at­tend­ed any meet­ing of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil where­in he in­ter­act­ed with me."

"I have nev­er as prime min­is­ter spo­ken to Mr Den­nie in any ca­pac­i­ty...not on the phone, not in writ­ing, not face to face. I don't know the man," Dr Row­ley said.

He said that as a ju­nior, sub­or­di­nate SSA em­ploy­ee, Den­nie was nev­er in the po­si­tion to in­ter­face with the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil or with the prime min­is­ter.

'So the state­ment he made on the UNC plat­form that I gave him in­struc­tions to do any­thing, is noth­ing but an un­var­nished lie," Dr Row­ley said.

He said Den­nie would not have been in any po­si­tion to hire or fire any­one, which the prime min­is­ter said makes his claim more un­true.

"To go on a UNC plat­form and say that he was asked to fire peo­ple is noth­ing but a fool­ish lie," the prime min­is­ter said.

The prime min­is­ter al­so not­ed that the se­cret doc­u­ments re­ferred to the "re­moval of sen­si­tive equip­ment of the serv­er room at Pi­ar­co", a site, he said, that was the nerve-cen­tre of the SSA.

The re­port, as stat­ed by Dr Row­ley, claims that equip­ment was re­moved from the site on Sep­tem­ber 10, 2012, lead­ing to the dis­rup­tion of the coun­try's in­tel­li­gence sys­tem for sev­er­al days.

Den­nie, the prime min­is­ter said, was writ­ten-up in that re­port.

The prime min­is­ter ques­tioned whether Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar knew of this, she hav­ing been the chair of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil in 2012.

If she did, he ques­tioned why she would bring Den­nie on a UNC plat­form.

Dr Row­ley said Den­nie's claim should be "con­demned by every cit­i­zen of T&T".

He added: "This is noth­ing but an at­tack on the peo­ple of T&T. It is a lie that is meant to cre­ate dam­age....and cre­ate hate."

In re­sponse, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the prime min­is­ter was "a des­per­ate man grasp­ing at straws".

She said the prime min­is­ter was "try­ing to play the vic­tim role while the en­tire coun­try is suf­fer­ing be­cause of his in­com­pe­tence".

She added: "Den­nie nev­er named Kei­th Row­ley as giv­ing the in­struc­tion, so why (was there need for) a knee-jerk press con­fer­ence un­less he felt like he per­son­al­ly had some­thing to de­fend."