Geisha Kow­lessar

A plot hatched by lo­cal ter­ror­ists to dis­rupt the process of the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion has been foiled by law en­force­ment of­fi­cers. The plan, hint­ed by act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er James Philbert at a press brief­ing yes­ter­day, may have been linked to a small po­lit­i­cal par­ty with cer­tain re­li­gious ties. Up to late yes­ter­day, five peo­ple were as­sist­ing po­lice with in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Ac­cord­ing to Philbert, who spoke at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, of­fi­cers from the West­ern Di­vi­sion swooped down on a house at Mc Ken­zie Dri­ve, Care­nage, around 9 pm on Thurs­day.

Po­lice seized a ful­ly-loaded AK-47 as­sault ri­fle, two mag­a­zines and 48 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, in­clud­ing 5.56 am­mu­ni­tion. Philbert said 22 green T-shirts, em­bla­zoned with the lo­go and mark­ings of the New Na­tion­al Vi­sion (NNV) par­ty, al­so were re­cov­ered. He did not say pub­licly whether the NNV had any­thing to do with yes­ter­day's seizure or if the po­lice had ev­i­dence the gun and am­mu­ni­tion were con­nect­ed to the NNV, led by the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen. Philbert, how­ev­er, said: "We have un­earthed cred­i­ble ev­i­dence which shows that a cer­tain group has ex­pressed its in­ten­tion to dis­rupt elec­tion pro­ceed­ings. "In search­ing one of the five per­sons, a key for a ve­hi­cle, which was parked on the com­pound of that home, was found and when the ve­hi­cle was searched these 22 green jer­seys were found and seized," Philbert said.

Giv­ing his as­sur­ance that the Po­lice Ser­vice in­tend­ed to main­tain its man­date "to the fullest ex­tent of the law," Philbert said no one would be al­lowed to dis­rupt the elec­tion cam­paign. He said: "We in­tend to al­low no one, no group and who­ev­er they are to stop us from ex­er­cis­ing our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights in T&T. "We know who these peo­ple are and we know what they in­tend to do and we are go­ing to use all our re­sources and ser­vices avail­able to en­sure that elec­tion is free and fair and that the pub­lic would be al­lowed to ex­er­cise their con­sti­tu­tion­al right," Philbert said. He said mem­bers from the var­i­ous po­lit­i­cal par­ties had al­ready met with the po­lice and al­so were giv­en the as­sur­ance of safe­ty.

"We have met with all par­ties to en­sure they are safe with­in the do­mains to con­duct their ex­er­cis­es and elec­tion cam­paigns," Philbert said. He said of­fi­cers would act "fierce­ly and fear­less­ly with­in the am­bit of the law. "By week­end we will have the full par­tic­i­pa­tion of all pro­tec­tive ser­vices, in­clud­ing the Spe­cial An­ti Crime Unit of T&T and the De­fence Force... the full de­ploy­ment to sup­port these ini­tia­tives," Philbert said.