PORT-OF-SPAIN – Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has once again dismissed new allegations by corruption-accused Jack Warner as lies.
Warner called a news conference at the Hotel Normandie in St Ann’s Tuesday, where he presented a sworn affidavit claiming Persad-Bissessar accepted TT$8.3 million in cheques from United National Congress financiers Ish Galbaransingh and Steve Ferguson at the Tunapuna home of businessman Ralph Gopaul in May 2010.
Warner claimed the Prime Minister indicated to him the creation of the Justice Ministry would “help our friends”.
Galbaransingh and Ferguson are accused of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and bid-rigging in relation to two construction packages for the Piarco Airport construction project. The charges indicated the alleged acts took place in the United States and elsewhere between 1996 and 2001.
Their extradition request was quashed by Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh in 2011, who ordered they be tried in Trinidad.
Following Warner’s news conference, the Prime Minister issued a release stating his news conference “was a damp squib littered with lies and more lies”.
“Let me state very clearly and unequivocally that these accusations are false and without any foundation whatsoever,” she stated.
Persad-Bissessar said she hoped the observers “will by now have noted the pattern of increasingly far-fetched claims being made by this man and how quickly each set of his claims unravels once the facts are known. Everybody knows his present plight and why he is becoming so desperate. He is a stranger to the truth”.
Warner is accused of corruption, fraud and money laundering by the United States with respect to his tenure at FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association). Warner is currently out on TT$2.5 million bail.
In dealing with Warner’s claim that Galbaransingh and Ferguson paid millions to the Prime Minister for their freedom, Persad-Bissessar stated due process in law was followed with respect to the case of these two men. (Trinidad Express)
