En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young says he has nev­er been in pos­ses­sion of an au­to­mat­ic firearm, but he has con­firmed that he did do­nate a le­gal weapon to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

Young added he has al­ways abid­ed by the laws of the coun­try.

Young spoke with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day by phone, fol­low­ing UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal’s call to the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to say if there’s an on­go­ing po­lice probe about a min­is­ter who “ap­peared “ to have sur­ren­dered an au­to­mat­ic weapon to the TTPS Ar­moury in St James.

Mooni­lal made the call at the Op­po­si­tion’s Sun­day me­dia brief­ing in Port-of-Spain. He showed sam­ple pic­tures of a Spring­field St Edge 5.56 pis­tol, which he said is clas­si­fied as a pis­tol be­cause of its bar­rel length. But he said de­spite this it was ac­tu­al­ly an “as­sault weapon.”

Mooni­lal said, “We’re told the min­is­ter isn’t old, he’s young...I’m ask­ing the min­is­ter to in­form Trinidad and To­ba­go if this is your ‘mat­ic’ you’ve sur­ren­dered. I think this young min­is­ter must be ques­tioned, as this is a min­is­ter who has po­lice guard him day and night.”

“I cau­tion TTPS, I hope they aren’t aid­ing and abet­ting in this mat­ter and the TTPS un­der­stands the Gov­ern­ment will change very soon and we’ll call for a com­pre­hen­sive probe of this mat­ter and hope they won’t cov­er up this ‘Not Old’ min­is­ter,” Mooni­lal added.

But re­spond­ing to ques­tions about the mat­ter, Young said, “I have nev­er been in pos­ses­sion of an au­to­mat­ic firearm.”

He al­so point­ed out, “The pos­ses­sion and dis­pos­al of any le­gal firearm must be au­tho­rised and ap­proved by a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

“I can con­firm that I did do­nate a le­gal weapon to the TTPS. At all times I have abid­ed by the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He added, “My ac­tion was of my own vo­li­tion and I stand by it.” Young did not give de­tails about his de­ci­sion to do­nate the weapon.

Mooni­lal, dur­ing the me­dia brief­ing, had sev­er­al ques­tions in­clud­ing why the gun was sur­ren­dered, if the Prime Min­is­ter in­struct­ed the min­is­ter to dis­pose of it, if it was al­tered to make it an il­le­gal au­to­mat­ic weapon, if a firearm dis­pos­al per­mit was sought, why it was not lodged at the TTPS sta­tion in the min­is­ter’s area and if fees were paid to re­turn it.

He al­so claimed, “We’re told he re­turned it as a gift to TTPS’ Mul­ti-Op­er­a­tions Pur­pose (MOPS) unit which falls un­der the Spe­cial Branch. But TTPS can­not ac­cept a gift of a gun. You think this is 100 case of wa­ter or corn curls?

“Gen­er­al­ly, you can on­ly hand over a le­gal firearm when you’re 75 years. But the min­is­ter’s not old, he’s young ... can he say how many weapons he has per­son­al­ly. We’re told there’s a min­is­ter with five per­son­al firearms,” Mooni­lal al­leged.

He al­so said he learned the TTPS’ Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau is prob­ing the mat­ter. But he said the UNC has no con­fi­dence in the PSB and wants the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty to in­ves­ti­gate in­stead.

The Op­po­si­tion MP called for the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to give a full state­ment if there is a probe of a high pow­ered weapon be­ing sur­ren­dered by a min­is­ter. He said this has to be done in cir­cum­stances where prop­er pro­ce­dure al­leged­ly “wasn’t fol­lowed.”

Mean­while, Mooni­lal took is­sue with the po­lice ser­vice, con­demn­ing it for ad­vis­ing busi­ness­peo­ple to hire pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty to ac­com­pa­ny them to banks.

He said curb­ing crime was the job of the TTPS.