Less than 24 hours after saying he knew nothing about a death threat against Opposition Leader Dr. Keith Rowley, National Security Minister Brigadier Carl Alfonso has confirmed that police are investigating such a threat.
Local media reports today quoted Alfonso as saying that Deputy Commissioner of Police Glenn Hackett on Monday morning officially informed him that lawmen had received a report that Rowley’s life was in danger, and that security for the People’s National Movement (PNM) leader had been beefed up as a result.
Alfonso said he does not know the source of the report, or who reported it to him, but clearly, he must be concerned, and is dealing with it, declining to say anything more because of the ongoing investigation.
Speaking at a political meeting on Sunday, Rowley said the government had hired people to kill him. Senior PNM member Faris Al-Rawi further alleged that a TT$15 million (US$2.3 million) hit, had been put on Rowley.
Alfonso told the Trinidad Express on Sunday that he had not been informed of any threat on Rowley’s life.
“Maybe the Police Commissioner may have received that information and probably he has dealt with it, but it has not come any further. It has not come to any member of government, certainly not to my good self. If the Police Commissioner thinks it’s serious enough to inform me, he will,” the minister told the newspaper at the time.
Before Alfonso reported that he had been brought up to speed on this matter, Communications Minister Vasant Bharath had dismissed Rowley’s claims, charging that if the threat was real, it would have been reported to police.
“To make such allegations on a public platform is not only irresponsible and deliberately contrived to create panic, it is also a demonstration of using public platforms to incite the population rather than to articulate clear plans for the future,” he said in a statement.
