Au­thor­i­ties were in­formed of the al­leged plot to as­sas­si­nate Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and three se­nior Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters by a con­fi­den­tial in­for­mant. Ac­cord­ing to doc­u­ments, leaked to the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, an of­fi­cer of the Po­lice Spe­cial Branch was in­formed of de­tails of the plot in late Oc­to­ber. The doc­u­ments al­so al­leged those con­nect­ed with the plot were plan­ning to use high-pow­ered ri­fles to as­sas­si­nate those tar­get­ed.

On Mon­day, at a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty press brief­ing, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy con­firmed that At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, Hous­ing and the En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma were all po­ten­tial tar­gets. Ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ments, the ar­chi­tect of the plot was the leader of a Mus­lim or­gan­i­sa­tion based in cen­tral Trinidad. Sources said one of the 16 de­tainees, who were held last week in con­nec­tion with the plot, was the "mas­ter­mind" who de­vel­oped plans and re­cruit­ed "high­ly-skilled" op­er­a­tives to ex­e­cute the plan.

The de­tainees, who were ar­rest­ed at lo­ca­tions across Trinidad last week, re­ceived de­ten­tion or­ders un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions of 2011 ear­li­er this week. They are be­ing held at the Gold­en Grove Pris­ons' fa­cil­i­ty, Arou­ca. Two de­tainees and their rel­a­tives were ar­rest­ed in Sep­tem­ber at a farm in Waller­field. They are be­fore the Ari­ma Mag­is­trates' Court on arms an am­mu­ni­tion charges. The doc­u­ments re­ceived by the T&T Guardian al­leged that the two men, who were un­der in­tense sur­veil­lance pri­or to their ar­rest by of­fi­cers of the Crim­i­nal In­tel­li­gence Unit (CIU), were in­volved in train­ing in ter­ror­ist drills and ad­vance weapons train­ing.

An­oth­er de­tainee, with ad­dress­es in cen­tral and east Trinidad, was al­leged­ly ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers in­ves­ti­gat­ing the plot with a book, en­ti­tled "Com­man­ders of the Mus­lim Army". In­tel­li­gence sources said the book was a train­ing man­u­al in guer­ril­la and ur­ban war­fare. The doc­u­ments al­so de­tailed in­for­ma­tion on the source of the weapons which the con­spir­a­tors were plan­ning to use in the plot. The doc­u­ments al­so al­leged that a cen­tral busi­ness­man, who is be­ing hunt­ed by po­lice, was the per­son charged with the im­por­ta­tion of the long-range ri­fles and "ar­mour-pierc­ing" am­mu­ni­tion which were to be used in the at­tack which was al­leged­ly due to take place on No­vem­ber 24.

The home and busi­ness place of the busi­ness­man were searched ear­li­er this week. Of­fi­cers of the CIU and Or­gan­ised Crime, Nar­cotics and Firearms Bu­reau re­port­ed­ly dis­cov­ered a sub­stan­tial cache of arms of am­mu­ni­tion, in­clud­ing over 30 rounds of high-pow­ered am­mu­ni­tion. Ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ments, po­lice, up to late yes­ter­day, seized sev­er­al firearms, over 200 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, bul­let­proof vests and two stolen ve­hi­cles. Cam­ou­flage uni­forms for dif­fer­ent arms of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, in­clud­ing Po­lice, De­fence Force and Coast Guard, al­so were al­leged­ly found dur­ing sev­er­al raids at the de­tainees' homes and prop­er­ties.