An act­ing po­lice sergeant and two po­lice con­sta­bles at­tached to the Ch­agua­nas Rob­bery Squad will ap­pear be­fore a Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate on Tues­day af­ter they were all charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

The charge arose out of an in­ci­dent last Thurs­day in which they al­leged­ly de­mand­ed mon­ey from a Cen­tral busi­ness­man.

The 51-year-old Cen­tral busi­ness­man re­port­ed that he went to pur­chase a mo­tor ve­hi­cle in Cen­tral Trinidad when he was con­front­ed by three men, one of whom al­leged­ly point­ed a firearm at him and de­mand­ed he hand over $50,000 in cash.

The po­lice of­fi­cers al­leged­ly kept him against his will and forced him to make phone calls to ob­tain the mon­ey. The sum of $35,000 was lat­er ob­tained by the busi­ness­man who hand­ed it over to the men be­fore he was re­leased.

A re­port was made the fol­low­ing day to of­fi­cers of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) and the of­fi­cers were lat­er ar­rest­ed.

The 44-year-old act­ing sergeant Ram­goolan De­osaran with 22 years ser­vice, 32-year-old po­lice con­sta­ble In­shan Khan with ten years ser­vice and 38-year-old po­lice con­sta­ble An­ton Sam­son with nine years ser­vice were charged last night af­ter in­struc­tions were giv­en by DPP Roger Gas­pard.

De­osaran, Khan and Sam­son were joint­ly charged for: (i)whilst per­form­ing the du­ties as a po­lice of­fi­cer in which the pub­lic has an in­ter­est mis­be­haved them­selves whilst act­ing in such of­fice by as­sault­ing the vic­tim with in­tent to rob him.(ii) Whilst per­form­ing the du­ties of a po­lice of­fi­cer in which the pub­lic has an in­ter­est did mis­be­have them­selves in such of­fice by plac­ing the vic­tim un­der false im­pris­on­ment.

Act­ing Sgt De­osaran was fur­ther charged with while per­form­ing the du­ties of a po­lice of­fi­cer in which the pub­lic has an in­ter­est did mis­be­have him­self in the said of­fice by de­mand­ing $50,000 by men­ace and al­so for ob­struct­ing the po­lice in the ex­e­cu­tion of their du­ty. The charges were laid by Sgt Cleeve Grey.

Dur­ing the course of the PSB in­ves­ti­ga­tion of­fi­cers al­so found hid­den in the ceil­ing of the Ch­agua­nas CID of­fice three firearms, one air pis­tol, 70 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, 28 pack­ages of what ap­peared to be mar­i­jua­na, a quan­ti­ty of co­caine and a quan­ti­ty of cash.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was co­or­di­nat­ed by Act­ing As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice To­taram Dookhie and in­clud­ed Act­ing Snr Supt Ver­non Roberts, WP Sgt Hunte, cor­po­rals Kelvin Mar­cano, Paul Mo­hammed, Ter­ry Moore, Ralph Ram­per­sad and WP Cpl Mur­ray Mar­shall.