Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi has re­ject­ed claims by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der that the re­cent spike in mur­ders could have been avoid­ed had the Op­po­si­tion sup­port­ed the pro­posed Zone of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) leg­is­la­tion.

Speak­ing with re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Al-Rawi dis­missed Alexan­der’s crit­i­cism as “in­fan­tile,” ar­gu­ing that the Min­is­ter’s rea­son­ing does not with­stand scruti­ny.

Alexan­der re­cent­ly ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of fail­ing to sup­port the ZOSO Bill, which the Gov­ern­ment said would have pro­vid­ed en­hanced pow­ers to se­cu­ri­ty forces in des­ig­nat­ed high-crime ar­eas. He sug­gest­ed the bill’s de­feat con­tributed to the cur­rent uptick in vi­o­lent crime.