RALPH BAN­WARIE

Sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers re­ceived a to­tal of $1.5 mil­lion in bail af­ter ap­pear­ing in court charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice yes­ter­day.

In­spec­tor Deyal Ram­lakhan was grant­ed $300,000 bail with sure­ty in ad­di­tion to his pre­vi­ous $250,000 and SRP PC Cleon Smith had an ad­di­tion­al $400,000 sure­ty bail in ad­di­tion to his pre­vi­ous bail of $250,000 grant­ed by Mag­is­trate Cheron Raphael.

Ag Cpl Sa­heed Khan was yes­ter­day placed on $150,000 bail; PCs Da­vanan Rag­bir and Macai Joseph were grant­ed $200,000 bail; and PCs Ray­on Charles and PC Ja­son O’ Souna were grant­ed $150,000 bail.

All bail were grant­ed with sure­ty by Jus­tice of the Peace Ba­bootie. These of­fi­cers were charged in the on­go­ing case on Tues­day, af­ter they were sum­moned to re­port to the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau on Mon­day.

Two fe­male of­fi­cers, who were part of the group of sev­en of­fi­cers asked to re­port to the PSB on Mon­day, were re­leased that same day with­out be­ing charged.

The sev­en of­fi­cers were grant­ed bail with sure­ty amount­ing to $1.4 mil­lion by Jus­tice of the Peace Ba­bootie on Tues­day night, af­ter they were charged fol­low­ing in­struc­tion by the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

In a me­dia re­lease on Tues­day, the TTPS said the of­fi­cers were charged af­ter an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a video show­ing cash be­ing seized.

The video was cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia re­cent­ly with its au­thor claim­ing his rel­a­tive had been the vic­tim of ex­tor­tion by po­lice of­fi­cers.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tions were spear­head­ed by Sr Supt Suzette Mar­tin, su­per­vised by Supt Mon­trichard, and in­clud­ed ASP Birch, In­sp. Guy and Ag Cpl Joe­field.