PM says girl who threatened her should not be punished

Kamla Persad-Bissessar says she should meet the girl and accept her apology.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Tuesday August 30, 2011 – Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar says the 14-year-old girl who posted a verbally obscene and threatening video about her on the Internet should not be punished and she would like to meet with her to find out why she felt it necessary to do what she did.

The girl, who called herself ‘Granny Quilla’, made a video that she first posted on YouTube and then Facebook last week, in which she issued death threats, used obscene language and made racist remarks to Persad-Bissessar over the declaration of a State of Emergency in the country and curfew restrictions in some areas. Among her comments were that a sniper would shoot the Prime Minister and “leave no evidence”.

"I saw in the newspaper today that there is a 14- or a 15-year-old girl, it is alleged that she made some abusive remarks about me on Facebook and the AG had talked about it, and said it was in the hands of the police and the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions)," she said yesterday.

"And then I'm reading today that this young girl has apologised on the Facebook. And I would like to say that I am a mother and a grandmother and this is a teenager, this is a child and I am sure you will agree with me when we say that I should meet her, that I should accept her apologies.

"And we should find out why, as a young girl she felt it necessary to do such a thing. I am not of the view in the circumstances that she should be punished in any way. I think first we should talk with her and see what help we can be, all these things are possible."

The girl’s video was and contained abusive and threatening language to the Prime Minister.

But in a subsequent video that was posted on Attorney General Anand Ramlogan’s Facebook page, she apologised for the comments, saying that she made the video “for fun” and did not mean any harm.

Ramlogan had made a public appeal over the weekend for the teen to give herself up to the police after she apologised.He said that although the girl had apologised, a police investigation would continue and the law had to take its course. Click here to receive free news bulletins via email from Caribbean360. (View sample)