Jack Warn­er has ac­cused Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les of pro­mot­ing vi­o­lence on the cam­paign trail, af­ter Gon­za­les told sup­port­ers to “bury [Warn­er] in the Lopinot ceme­tery” dur­ing a PNM meet­ing ear­li­er this week.

In a lengthy state­ment, Warn­er said he was “amused and dis­turbed” by Gon­za­les’ re­marks, call­ing them a “mo­ron­ic at­tempt to chan­nel rage” and warn­ing they could in­cite re­al harm. “We have not heard politi­cians in Trinidad and To­ba­go, re­gion­al­ly or with­in the Com­mon­wealth, call for the death of one of their peers re­gard­less of the pol­i­tics they sup­port,” Warn­er said.

Warn­er was re­spond­ing to com­ments Gon­za­les made at a ral­ly in Arou­ca/Lopinot on April 9. Re­fer­ring to Warn­er’s 2020 chal­lenge in the con­stituen­cy, Gon­za­les said: “I put him in the blast­ed box… We have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty April 28 to put Jack in the box once and for all. And let us bury him in the Lopinot ceme­tery!”