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Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­tract and apol­o­gise for what she de­scribes as “defam­a­to­ry, in­flam­ma­to­ry and false” al­le­ga­tions made against the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, Beck­les ac­cused the Prime Min­is­ter of a “pre­dictable at­tempt to de­flect” from po­lit­i­cal short­com­ings by lev­el­ling se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of crim­i­nal con­duct with­out pro­vid­ing ver­i­fi­able ev­i­dence.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader point­ed to what she de­scribed as a pat­tern of be­hav­iour, cit­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s May 2022 al­le­ga­tions of a “pae­dophile ring with­in the PNM” and 2023 claims of hu­man traf­fick­ing in­volv­ing par­ty of­fi­cials. Beck­les al­so ref­er­enced what she said were crim­i­nal in­sin­u­a­tions di­rect­ed at sen­a­tors over the past month.