Long-time Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ac­tivist Bri­an Stone col­lapsed and died of sus­pect­ed heart fail­ure while play­ing ta­ble ten­nis at the Queen’s Park Oval yes­ter­day. Stone, a busi­ness con­sul­tant, was a well-known and con­tro­ver­sial fig­ure in the lo­cal po­lit­i­cal scene.

Fol­low­ing news of his pass­ing, for­mer mem­ber of par­lia­ment for Cou­va North Ra­mona Ram­di­al ex­pressed her con­do­lences on her Face­book page.

“He was a UNC ac­tivist ex­tra­or­di­naire and I had the plea­sure of work­ing close­ly with him for five years as an ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the UNC par­ty school. In re­cent times, while our po­lit­i­cal opin­ions dif­fered, we were still able to main­tain re­spect for each oth­er. His love, ded­i­ca­tion and ser­vice to coun­try was known to all. Sleep well, my friend,” Ram­di­al wrote.

For­mer UNC coun­cil­lor Safraz Ali al­so had kind words for Stone, writ­ing: “I can­not be­lieve this. Just last week, you called me and we spoke for two hours on the phone about the po­lit­i­cal cli­mate of our coun­try! Rest in peace, sol­dier. You were a good one!”

Sev­er­al oth­ers ex­pressed con­do­lences on so­cial me­dia, de­scrib­ing Stone as a pa­tri­ot.

“Can’t be­lieve what I hear­ing. Rest in peace, Bri­an Stone. You were a won­der­ful per­son,” Melis­sa Raghu­nanan-Nia­math wrote.

Lasy year, Stone promised to go to Ukraine to fight in the coun­try’s war against Rus­sia. His an­nounce­ment got the at­ten­tion of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Amery Browne, but Stone nev­er made the trip.

In No­vem­ber 2021, he was one of 30 peo­ple ar­rest­ed by po­lice dur­ing an an­ti-vac­cine protest at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. He was nev­er charged.

In May 2020, the UNC ac­tivist was or­dered to pay Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley more than $350,000 in a defama­tion suit. The court ruled he de­famed the PM in a 2017 Face­book post.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, in Oc­to­ber 2011, while the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment was in pow­er, Stone was ap­point­ed Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of CN­MG (now TTT). He re­signed a year lat­er.

On Fri­day, Stone ac­cused the gov­ern­ment of hav­ing “some­thing up their sleeves” af­ter it was re­port­ed that there was a cy­ber-at­tack on the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.