Kamla tells Rowley apologise for race claim or face court action

The Prime Minister has been given seven days to apologise to Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar for his accusation that she said crime was directed at one ethnic group.

In a release on Thursday, Persad-Bissessar said her attorneys sent a pre-action protocol letter to Dr Rowley after he failed to apologise for the comments he made at a People's National Movement (PNM) family day on Sunday.

"As this pre-action protocol letter states, Rowley now has seven (7) days to issue an unqualified public retraction of his defamatory statements and make a public apology. If he fails to do so, legal proceedings in the High Court would be commenced," the Opposition Leader said.

She said the Prime Minister's statements were unacceptable, reckless and abhorrent.

"Rowley’s act of wilfully ascribing statements to me which I never made, are not only demonstrably false, but they are also incendiary and clearly meant to incite ethnic divisions in our society."

She said the statements have done irreparable damage to her reputation.

"Having led a failed government for the past eight years, littered with a trail of destruction, Rowley is now attempting to promote hatred and distrust among our citizens to compensate for his utter lack of achievement."

Persad-Bissessar also addressed the Prime Minister's comments about the bomb threats sent to the nation's schools last Friday, which she said he "insinuated that the UNC was somehow responsible for the recent bomb threats."

"It is untenable that a sitting Prime Minister would resort to making baseless and disparaging claims against his political opponents in a pathetic attempt at distracting from his own failures and shortcomings."