Rhon­dor Dowlat

Of­fi­cials at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty are al­leged to have dis­cov­ered a plot to desta­bilise the coun­try.The plot in­volves the im­por­ta­tion of a ship­ment of arms and am­mu­ni­tion worth well over $10 mil­lion, which was to be used to cre­ate hav­oc in Port-of-Spain ahead of last Fri­day's jail­break at the Fred­er­ick Street prison by in­mates Al­lan "Scan­ny" Mar­tin, Has­san Atwell and Christo­pher Sel­by.

The lat­est in­tel­li­gence in­for­ma­tion re­vealed that the grenade found out­side the Port-of-Spain Prison, which was said to have been used by Mar­tin dur­ing the es­cape, was just one from a ship­ment of grenades and oth­er high-tech arms and am­mu­ni­tion, in­clud­ing three rock­et launch­ers, AK47s, M24 sniper ri­fles and Desert Ea­gles.

The T&T Guardian was in­formed by an in­tel­li­gence source that the ship­ment en­tered the coun­try sev­er­al weeks ago in the name of two busi­ness­men from cen­tral and south Trinidad. It is al­leged the busi­ness­men are linked to a top crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tion in T&T.Sources said they linked Fri­day's prison break to the ship­ment be­cause the grenade which Mar­tin had was from that ship­ment and had al­leged­ly been smug­gled in­to the Port-of-Spain prison.

It is be­lieved that af­ter the trio shot their way to free­dom in a well ex­e­cut­ed es­cape plan, Mar­tin was sup­posed to throw the grenade over the prison walls, near the prison of­fi­cers' dor­mi­to­ry. The im­pact of the ex­plo­sion was ex­pect­ed to cause se­vere dam­age to the dor­mi­to­ry, where prison of­fi­cers who had worked the night shift would have been rest­ing be­fore mak­ing their way home.

The source said there were oth­er peo­ple strate­gi­cal­ly placed out­side sev­er­al key gov­ern­ment build­ings with­in the cap­i­tal, in­clud­ing the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the Hall of Jus­tice, al­leged­ly armed with oth­er ex­plo­sive de­vices.These in­di­vid­u­als were in­struct­ed to set off these de­vices once Mar­tin's grenade had been ac­ti­vat­ed at the prison.

The sole pur­pose of these acts were to cre­ate mas­sive pan­ic and may­hem through­out the city among com­muters, pedes­tri­ans, work­ing com­mu­ni­ty and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel."This in­for­ma­tion that we are gath­er­ing can­not be tak­en for grant­ed. This is more se­ri­ous than ever and should be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly. It is in no way to cause pan­ic among the cit­i­zens in T&T but it is the re­al­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion," the source said.

The source added that it was al­leged that there was an army of peo­ple, both women and men, who were linked to a crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tion and who were al­ready giv­en Mid­dle East mil­i­tary-type train­ing in us­ing the high-tech weapons which were on T&T shores."These peo­ple are just wait­ing for the green light to go ahead with this plan," the source said.

It is al­leged that pris­on­ers Mar­tin, Atwell and Sel­by, who al­leged­ly bro­kered a mil­lion-dol­lar deal with se­nior prison of­fi­cers to se­cure their free­dom last Fri­day, were al­leged­ly part of the big­ger plot.It is al­so al­leged that two se­nior prison of­fi­cers, be­lieved to have been di­rect­ly in­volved in the prison break plot, were al­so privy to the big­ger plot.

Last Fri­day at about 12.30 pm, Mar­tin, Atwell and Sel­by shot their way out of the Fred­er­ick Street prison. PC Sher­man May­nard was shot as the es­capees tar­get­ed the ve­hi­cle in which he was sit­ting. May­nard sub­se­quent­ly died at hos­pi­tal. Mar­tin was lat­er killed by po­lice at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.Atwell and Sel­by es­caped but Atwell was gunned down on Sat­ur­day night at East Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain. On Sun­day, Sel­by sur­ren­dered at the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion.