Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­tract and apol­o­gise for what she de­scribes as “defam­a­to­ry, in­flam­ma­to­ry and false” al­le­ga­tions made against the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, Beck­les ac­cused the Prime Min­is­ter of a “pre­dictable at­tempt to de­flect” from po­lit­i­cal short­com­ings by lev­el­ling se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of crim­i­nal con­duct with­out pro­vid­ing ver­i­fi­able ev­i­dence.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader point­ed to what she de­scribed as a pat­tern of be­hav­iour, cit­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s May 2022 al­le­ga­tions of a “pae­dophile ring with­in the PNM” and 2023 claims of hu­man traf­fick­ing in­volv­ing par­ty of­fi­cials. Beck­les al­so ref­er­enced what she said were crim­i­nal in­sin­u­a­tions di­rect­ed at sen­a­tors over the past month.

Now, Beck­les claimed, the Prime Min­is­ter has es­ca­lat­ed her rhetoric by ac­cus­ing the PNM of “mafia-style fi­nanc­ing and pae­dophil­ia.”

“Any al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing such se­ri­ous mat­ters should be ac­com­pa­nied by ac­tion­able ev­i­dence, which should trig­ger in­ves­ti­ga­tion and law­ful pros­e­cu­tion,” Beck­les said. “Pre­sent­ing al­le­ga­tions with­out ev­i­dence is a dan­ger­ous prece­dent in any democ­ra­cy.”

She main­tained that if the Prime Min­is­ter pos­sess­es cred­i­ble ev­i­dence of or­gan­ised crime, sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion or fi­nan­cial mis­con­duct, it is her du­ty to place that ev­i­dence be­fore the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

“The Con­sti­tu­tion does not per­mit tri­al by po­lit­i­cal plat­form,” Beck­les added.

Ac­cord­ing to Beck­les, the fail­ure to pro­vide ev­i­dence places the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ments in the “realm of bac­cha­nal and scan­dal,” aimed at dis­trac­tion rather than jus­tice.

She con­clud­ed that if no apol­o­gy is forth­com­ing, the Prime Min­is­ter should re­sign.

“The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter is a po­si­tion of na­tion­al trust. That trust can­not be sus­tained by reck­less­ness at the very top,” Beck­les said.