Jack tells Express reporter he won't answer her questions

Jack Warner has declined a request from Express investigative journalist Camini Marajh for answers to a list of 40 questions on a wide range of subjects including the ownership of the Centre of Excellence, Warner's personal and private financial affairs, his role in FIFA and allegations of corruption.

The National Security Minister wrote to Marajh Saturday explaining why he chose not to answer the questions. His letter is published below:

Dear Ms Marajh,

If I choose to answer any one of your questions wrapped within your own expression of opinions and false judgment what I would be doing is validating character assassination posing as investigative journalism.

If one is asked a question on matters that never really existed in reality and it is denied, the headlines then scream "Jack Warner denies X" which simply places the fabrication out there and achieves the assassin's true objective.

In Trinidad and Tobago, public officials, such as I, are expected, and rightly so, to be held accountable. I recognise and respect this and have never asked nor have been given any quarter in this regard. But shouldn't there be equal accountability by any member of the media and the media house represented? Who investigates the background and agenda of the author of the investigative piece when bias is alleged by the hapless victim of any contrived story?

The right of you or anyone else to ask a question should be equally weighed by my own right to question the true intent of the reporter and the media organisation represented. 

My obligation to answer your questions for an article which I am advised will appear in your paper this Sunday must be equally met by your own dutiful obligation and that of your paper to be fair, unbiased, balanced and professional. In the absence of that I am released from my own duty to provide any responses to your many questions.

I can supply ample evidence of the blatantly biased reportage and defamatory articles on my family and me that have consistently appeared over time. 

Even pursuing legal action, which I have done on occasions, doesn't subtract the damage already done and the purpose served by those who choose to destroy anyone's name.  

Suffice it to say, it was Ria Taitt last Sunday, it is now Camini Marajh this Sunday; keep on writing Ms Marajh, you and others. In the meantime, I bask in the hope that one day you too will be "getting it write".

If you do not understand what I am saying then I refer you to Page 7 of your Friday Express newspaper where there is an article by Rev. Dr Winston Cuffie titled - STEP DOWN, WARNER ! THE BORING DETRACTORS' JOKE - try to read it if you have not done so as yet.

Finally, I attended the funeral service for the late Jerome Dominic Ramsahai at 10:00 o'clock this morning (Saturday). It was held at Our Lady of Perpetual Church on Harris Promenade, San Fernando. 

Several lovely hymns were sung throughout the service but the one that struck me the most was the one which said "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me." 

I would like to change just two words in that hymn - replace earth with Trinidad & Tobago and replace me withyou.

Do have a nice day!

Regards,
Jack Warner