Phillips dares McKenzie to disprove his political integrity

OPPOSITION BACKBENCHER Dr Peter Phillips has scoffed at claims from at least one member of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) that he was "not lily white".

Phillps insists he has no skeletons in his political closet.

"I am not a perfect human being but, in all my administration within Government, I have never broken the law in anything and I have never ... subverted the public trust to any partisan political agenda of any sort whatsoever," Phillips told The Gleaner Sunday.

Desmond McKenzie, a deputy leader for the JLP, lashed Phillips for his frequent comments on the extradition issue involving Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.

Addressing Labourites during a JLP Area Council One meeting in Duhaney Park, St Andrew, McKenzie said Phillips should only cast the first stone if he was without sin.

Phillips, a former national security minister, dared McKenzie to reveal what he knows. The Opposition's point man on the extradition matter said it was unhealthy for democracy when the JLP kept "diving for the gutter".

Throwing accusations

Earlier this month, while in Parliament, Phillips called government minister Karl Samuda a criminal after Samuda referred to him as an operative of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Phillips was in the process of seeking answers from Prime Minister Bruce Golding on the extradition request for Coke, who is wanted in the US on gun and narcotics charges.

During the fury which unfolded following the 'CIA-criminal' exchange, Daryl Vaz, a member of the governing party, accused Phillips of displaying a holier-than-thou attitude.

"Him go a gunman funeral and a gwaan like him virtuous," Vaz said.

Phillips was among three People's National Party government ministers who attended the funeral of Arnett Gardens don William 'Willie Haggart' Moore in 2001.