Persad-Bissessar said on Friday she will not answer any questions relating the Security Intelligence Agency (SIA), since they are matters of national security.
That is the issue that Manning is raising. The MP for San Fernando East, who initially charged that Persad-Bissessar was irresponsible in releasing such sensitive information, is now saying that Persad-Bissessar and her Government are not telling the truth about the SIA files. He wants to know whether they really existed.
The Prime Minister exposed the illegal wire-tapping operations of the SIA in Parliament on November 12 stating that the SIA "reported directly to the Minister of National Security and the Prime Minister as head of the country's National Security Council."
Attorney General Anand Ramlogan has since stated that the former head of the SIA told him that the spying instructions came from Manning, a charge that Manning has denied.
The SIA was spying on several public figures and private citizens. The list included President Max Richards, politicians including Persad-Bissessar, members of the judiciary, journalists, businessmen and private citizens who had no trouble with the law, Persad-Bissessar said.
"There was evidence to suggest that a massive sanitisation operation took place after the general elections. Empty folders carrying the names of the individuals who were the subject of interception were found.
"Other records of taped conversations and transcription of conversations have been removed and/or destroyed," Persad-Bissessar pointed out in her statement to Parliament one month ago.
In his media statement Saturday Manning accused the Prime Minister of "making that reprehensible statement in the Parliament on the 'SIA Files', uncaringly naming citizens, high and low, and weakening the national security apparatus of the country."
He added, "Mrs. Persad Bissessar had no such concern for the safety of the nation and its citizens. Now when the pressure is on her to come clean, she has suddenly lost her tongue...Either tell us the location of these documents or say they are a lie, a fabrication, a hoax. Then with sincere solemnity, apologise for misleading the Parliament and the nation in a matter of such magnitude," Manning said.
He said he will ask that "the Member of Siparia, be referred to the Privileges Committee for deliberately misleading the Parliament when she made that now infamous SIA statement to the House of Representatives."
Manning added, "I particularly look forward to the outcome of this move which I think absolutely necessary in the public interest...Persad-Bissessar and her cohorts have tried to sully my good name and the administration which I had the honour to lead by pointing to these so called files."
Manning also called for an independent tribunal led by a High Court judge to examine the documents used by the Prime Minister in her statement in Parliament on the SIA matter.
"You cannot slander and endanger people, including me, and then seek the refuge of deliberate obfuscation...I will tell you this Prime Minister. You could neither run nor hide. We demand that you reveal the whereabouts of these mysterious files," Manning said.
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