Kali­fa Clyne

A mil­i­tary man­hunt for a man who sol­diers say can help them solve the mur­der of their col­league Kay­o­de Thomas led to dra­ma on the doorstep of Guardian Me­dia Ltd yes­ter­day.The sus­pect, iden­ti­fied as Dil­lon "Bandy" Skeete, agreed to meet with a T&T Guardian re­porter ear­li­er yes­ter­day. Af­ter sev­er­al con­ver­sa­tions be­tween the re­porter and a lawyer rep­re­sent­ing him, Skeete even­tu­al­ly agreed to meet at the T&T Guardian build­ing at St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, around 4 pm.A se­ries of in­ci­dents took place short­ly be­fore the meet­ing.

Armed sol­diers rushed in­to the Queen Street carpark of the news­pa­per and ques­tioned the se­cu­ri­ty guard and an­oth­er mem­ber of staff about a red Maz­da car which had been parked there since 6.15 am.The dri­ver of the car told the se­cu­ri­ty guard on du­ty that she was a new em­ploy­ee and worked at CNC3. When she left, how­ev­er, she said she was work­ing at the T&T Guardian sales de­part­ment.An­oth­er group of sol­diers were seen parked on St Vin­cent Street, me­tres away from the en­trance to the T&T Guardian build­ing, in a mil­i­tary ve­hi­cle.Short­ly af­ter 3 pm, Skeete's lawyer, Rus­sell Warn­er, ar­rived in the lob­by. Skeete, ac­com­pa­nied by three women, ar­rived mo­ments lat­er. Dur­ing the in­ter­view, Skeete claimed he was be­ing hunt­ed across the coun­try by sol­diers and feared for his life.

As the in­ter­view was end­ing, about 20 min­utes lat­er, an uniden­ti­fied man tele­phoned the T&T Guardian op­er­a­tor and said there was a bomb in the build­ing and it would blow up if "you all don't ----ing come out."By then Skeete had left the build­ing.A se­nior sol­dier then tele­phoned an ed­i­tor say­ing he had heard a man who sol­diers were look­ing for was in the build­ing.Af­ter the bomb threat, alarms were set off and staff from the var­i­ous me­dia arms of GML, in­clud­ing tele­vi­sion sta­tion CNC3 and the GML ra­dio sta­tions, be­gan pour­ing out of the build­ing to gath­er at the muster point at Wood­ford Square.Po­lice and fire­fight­ers blocked off St Vin­cent Street, di­rect­ing rush-hour traf­fic along al­ter­na­tive routes.Po­lice as­signed to Spe­cial Branch, the in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing unit of the Po­lice Ser­vice, were the first to re­spond. They were lat­er joined by po­lice as­signed to the Ca­nine Unit and two bomb-sniff­ing dogs.

Dur­ing a de­tailed search, which last­ed al­most two hours, the po­lice were ac­com­pa­nied by three mem­bers of GML staff. They gave the all-clear to re­turn to the build­ing around 5.45 pm.

The dis­rup­tion de­layed the CNC3 7 pm news­cast and af­fect­ed the Crime Watch pro­gramme and oth­er me­dia op­er­a­tions.Skeete's lawyer said his client was able to elude the mil­i­tary drag­net and made it to a safe lo­ca­tion.

Skeete: I'm scared for my life

In the in­ter­view Skeete said mem­bers of his fam­i­ly were be­ing ha­rassed by sol­diers in dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try.He said on Ju­ly 9, his moth­er's house in To­co was searched, op­er­at­ing with­out po­lice as­sis­tance.Skeete de­scribed sim­i­lar search­es at his home in East Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain, and at a rel­a­tive's home in Cou­va. Sol­diers al­so searched an­oth­er rel­a­tive's home in Champs Fleurs."I'm scared for my life," Skeete said, adding that there was no war­rant out for his ar­rest.

A mem­ber of the po­lice Homi­cide Bu­reau con­firmed there was no war­rant out for Skeete nor was he want­ed for ques­tion­ing over the sol­dier's mur­der.Skeete said he has had no di­rect con­ver­sa­tion with ei­ther po­lice or sol­diers and had been speak­ing to po­lice through his lawyers."To me, it looks like those sol­diers just want to out my lights. They are com­ing in masks and they are threat­en­ing my fam­i­ly," he said. He ad­mit­ted that he has two mat­ters pend­ing in court for pur­chas­ing a stolen phone and ob­scene lan­guage and said some oth­er mat­ters, which he did not iden­ti­fy, were thrown out of court.

Skeete said sol­diers had ha­rassed his eight-year-old son and his girl­friend.Asked why he felt sol­diers were look­ing for him, he said he was told it was in re­la­tion to the mur­der of Thomas on June 29."He (Thomas) was my cousin. He was killed in Bev­er­ly Hills. I am from East Dry Riv­er. There is no way I can go there."He ex­plained that was be­cause of con­flict be­tween some res­i­dents of both ar­eas.He said he could not go to work as a con­trac­tor with the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion or stay home with his chil­dren but was forced to hide in fear for his life.

"I re­al­ly want this to stop," he added.

Army: Public­should co-op­er­ate

The T&T Guardian con­tact­ed civ­il mil­i­tary af­fairs of­fi­cer of the De­fence Force Ma­jor Al Alexan­der, who said sol­diers were ac­com­pa­nied by po­lice when they searched Skeete's rel­a­tives' home in Cou­va.Nei­ther Alexan­der or Pub­lic Af­fairs Of­fi­cer of the Reg­i­ment, Capt Ste­fan Al­fon­so, said they were look­ing in­to in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the me­dia yes­ter­day.Al­fon­so said: "The reg­i­ment is in­ves­ti­gat­ing these re­ports and we are al­so ask­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to co-op­er­ate with us and pro­vide any in­for­ma­tion or ev­i­dence of abuse by sol­diers to help with in­ves­ti­ga­tions."

GML re­sponds

Com­ment­ing on the bomb threat, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Guardian Me­dia Ltd Lisa Agard said it was an at­tack on press free­dom.

"I am very con­cerned if some­one can so eas­i­ly and so non­cha­lant­ly call in a bomb threat in to a me­dia house and dis­rupt our op­er­a­tions so sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

"We have to be very con­cerned and we have to be wor­ried about this at­tack on the me­dia – and we re­gard it as an at­tack on the me­dia," Agard said.