Marvin wants Sturge fired over Guerra ties

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les is call­ing on the Prime Min­is­ter to dis­miss De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, de­scrib­ing him as a li­a­bil­i­ty due to his re­port­ed as­so­ci­a­tion with slain To­co/San­gre Grande busi­ness­man Dan­ny Guer­ra.

Guer­ra, own­er of DG Homes, had pre­vi­ous­ly been de­tained dur­ing the last state of emer­gency in con­nec­tion with an al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter. He was al­so re­port­ed­ly linked to high-pow­ered weapons, the Re­sis­tance Gang, and il­le­gal quar­ry­ing. Guer­ra was killed on March 13.

Gon­za­les high­light­ed cam­paign trail footage show­ing Guer­ra danc­ing along­side Sturge, rais­ing con­cerns about the min­is­ter’s as­so­ci­a­tions. Sturge, a for­mer prac­tis­ing de­fence at­tor­ney, had al­so rep­re­sent­ed Guer­ra in court.

The for­mer min­is­ter ar­gued that the per­ceived re­la­tion­ship threat­ens na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and warned that in­ac­tion could erode pub­lic trust in the Gov­ern­ment.

“The Op­po­si­tion is call­ing up­on the Prime Min­is­ter to im­me­di­ate­ly re­move Wayne Sturge from the Gov­ern­ment and Cab­i­net of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Based on these re­ports, and with no ac­tion from the Prime Min­is­ter, who is chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, this pos­es a se­ri­ous threat to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty,” Gon­za­les said.

He added, “Wayne Sturge, as Min­is­ter of De­fence, has ac­cess to con­fi­den­tial in­tel­li­gence re­lat­ing to the se­cu­ri­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Based on these re­ports, he is an ex­am­ple of a fruit from a poi­soned tree, ben­e­fit­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly from what ap­pears to be crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign.”

Gon­za­les al­so ques­tioned the ef­fec­tive­ness of the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency, claim­ing it is be­ing used for po­lit­i­cal preser­va­tion rather than crime con­trol. He al­leged that in­di­vid­u­als with­in the Gov­ern­ment who ben­e­fit­ed from links to crim­i­nal el­e­ments dur­ing the 2025 elec­tion are now un­able to safe­ly re­turn to their con­stituen­cies, say­ing “the chick­ens are com­ing home to roost.”

“This is the re­al rea­son we have a state of emer­gency in Trinidad and To­ba­go. It is the ele­phant in the room, and we must not be afraid to call it out. The State of Emer­gency has noth­ing to do with crime and mur­ders. It has every­thing to do with deals made with crim­i­nals that the Gov­ern­ment can­not now ho­n­our, leav­ing the coun­try to live un­der a pub­lic State of Emer­gency. To­day, the con­stituen­cy of To­co/San­gre Grande is reap­ing the whirl­wind from those deals and has be­come a killing field,” he added.

When asked about com­par­a­tive al­le­ga­tions, Gon­za­les said he re­lied on in­for­ma­tion al­ready in the pub­lic do­main.

“I have not seen ev­i­dence to the con­trary. Every­thing I stat­ed points to pub­lished re­ports. I have not seen the for­mer MP Roger Mon­roe danc­ing with Dan­ny Guer­ra, nor ev­i­dence of Guer­ra spon­sor­ing pre­vi­ous PNM cam­paigns. What we have seen is Guer­ra as a front­line fig­ure for the UNC in the 2025 elec­tions, ap­pear­ing in mul­ti­ple videos with the cur­rent Min­is­ter of De­fence. Guardian Me­dia al­so re­port­ed that a close as­so­ciate of Guer­ra con­firmed he con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the UNC cam­paign to cap­ture that San­gre Grande seat,” Gon­za­les said.

He called on po­lice to take the lead in ad­dress­ing the mat­ter, cit­ing con­cern giv­en Sturge’s role in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“That should scan­dalise every cit­i­zen of this coun­try,” Gon­za­les said, ques­tion­ing the lack of pub­lic out­rage over the min­is­ter’s po­si­tion on the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the Prime Min­is­ter and De­fence Min­is­ter for com­ment, but re­ceived no re­sponse as of late yes­ter­day.