Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has come to the de­fence of Hous­ing Min­is­ter Adri­an Leonce, who has come un­der scruti­ny from the Op­po­si­tion over his now-de­funct busi­ness re­la­tion­ship with a man al­leged­ly linked to crim­i­nal net­works in the Unit­ed States, Eu­rope and the Caribbean.

Young ad­dressed the is­sue yes­ter­day while at­tend­ing the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s (EBC) pre­lim­i­nary ex­am­i­na­tion of nom­i­na­tion pa­pers at the Bel­mont Sec­ondary School in Port-of-Spain.

Af­ter par­tic­i­pat­ing in the ex­er­cise, Young was pressed on Leonce’s al­leged ties to a man he had at­tempt­ed to set up a busi­ness with in the UK, be­fore ter­mi­nat­ing the busi­ness when he was made aware that the man was fac­ing a po­lice probe.