Just over three years after he sat up front with two senior Cabinet colleagues at the funeral of slain Arnett Gardens don, William “Willie Haggart” Moore, Peter Phillips, the national security minister, yesterday expressed regret over the action and repeated a call he made in the Parliament Wednesday for politicians to shun criminals and drug dealers.

“I have, myself, in the past had to re-evaluate what kind of public statement that association or attendance at funerals may have conveyed,” Phillips told journalists when asked whether he would attend any more funerals of questionable characters in the future.

“That (attending the funeral) is something that is more forcefully brought home to me from the position in which I now sit,” added Phillips, at a news conference he called to clarify and expand on points he raised in his contribution to the sectoral debate Wednesday.

At the time of Haggart’s May 8, 2001 funeral inside the National Arena in Kingston, Phillips held the transport and works portfolio.

Phillips, as well as the then Water and Housing Minister Dr Karl Blythe, and Finance Minister Dr Omar Davies, attracted a lot of public flak for attending the funeral.

Officially, Moore was described as a businessman who ran a trucking enterprise and an entertainment complex at the very spot on Lincoln Avenue where he was killed on April 18, 2001. But he appeared to many to have had resources beyond the capacity of those businesses.

Two men – Albert “Blackadouch” Bonner, and Lowell “Big Bunny” Hinds – were also shot dead in the daylight gangland-style shooting which sparked immediate rumours that it was ordered by Colombian drug lords. Bonner and Hinds, it was said, were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

After Moore’s flashy funeral, Davies, in whose South St Andrew constituency Moore operated his business, defended his decision to attend the funeral. He blasted the “self-righteous judgment” of the persons who condemned his action and said that having dealt with Moore for almost eight years in his constituency, where he (Moore) helped in peace-building efforts, he would not deny him in death.

Yesterday, at a news conference he called to clarify and expand on points he raised in his contribution to the sectoral debate Wednesday, Phillips’ expression of regret formed part of his message to politicians, to distance themselves from connections with criminality, particularly the trade in illegal narcotics, which, he said, had the capacity to corrupt critical institutions, including the security forces, the financial sector, the judiciary and legal profession.

“There are people, not only in the political process, if money is to be laundered it finds its way through the financial system,” Phillips said.

The same, he said, was true of persons within the legal system who have links to launder money.

“This trade in illegal drugs constitutes a threat to the entire gamut of national institutions in the public sector, the private sector, and our political institutions as well, and I don’t think that any area is of less importance than any,” said Phillips.

He said that the Government had information on politicians involved in the drug trade but refrained from calling names.

He suggested that the best bet was for politicians to resist what he termed were the “easy wins” of gaining popularity by associations with drug dealers, noting that the best form of discipline was self-discipline.

“These easy wins are illusory and they will ultimately bring the entire national body politic to a point where its survival will be imperiled,” Phillips warned.