Camille Clarke

Chief of De­fense Staff Brigadier Gen­er­al Ken­rick Ma­haraj has con­firmed that there was a plot to as­sas­si­nate Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la-Per­sad Bisses­sar. "It was ear­marked for Thurs­day and we had op­er­a­tions across the land­scape on Wednes­day night. There were a lot of op­er­a­tions for dif­fer­ent tar­gets and things will un­fold," Ma­haraj told the T&T Guardian in an in­ter­view. "There is a big­ger pic­ture here, not on­ly a plot to as­sas­si­nate the Prime Min­is­ter. We con­tin­ue to get up­dates on how things are un­fold­ing." Ma­haraj said close at­ten­tion is be­ing paid to per­sons with mil­i­tary ca­pa­bil­i­ties who are sus­pect­ed to have been part of the plot. "When you have threats with in­ten­tions and ca­pa­bil­i­ty, you have to con­sid­er op­tions such as sniper ca­pa­bil­i­ties and ex­plo­sives. We have to look for the crit­i­cal ca­pa­bil­i­ties that these el­e­ments have," he said.

Ma­haraj said se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties will con­tin­ue un­til fur­ther no­tice. The na­tion has been on high alert since last Wednes­day when the plot to take the lives of the Prime Min­is­ter, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, Hous­ing and En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Chan­dresh Shar­ma was made pub­lic. "The De­fence Force is in an op­er­a­tional pos­ture right now with dif­fer­ent in­ten­si­ties, with land forces in the lead sup­port­ed by the Coast Guard," he said. Mean­while, as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to the plot, po­lice of­fi­cers said they are search­ing for the man be­lieved to be the mas­ter­mind be­hind the planned op­er­a­tion, as well as sev­er­al key play­ers.

Sources told the T&T Guardian they are look­ing at an Ari­ma busi­ness­man who is a mem­ber of a re­li­gious sect in­volved in the plot. A po­lice sergeant, a cor­po­ral, two for­mer mem­bers of the De­fence Force and promi­nent mem­bers of a re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tion were among 13 peo­ple held for ques­tion­ing last week. At present there is tight se­cu­ri­ty at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre at La Fan­tasie Road, St Ann's, as well the Nor­mandie Ho­tel lo­cat­ed di­rect­ly be­hind the com­pound. Spe­cial Branch and Spe­cial Forces of­fi­cers have been post at gov­ern­ment of­fices at Kent House, South Quay and Par­lia­ment.