RHON­DOR DOWLAT 

Se­nior Re­porter 

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt 

Fol­low­ing the col­lapse of the case against sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers ac­cused of ex­tor­tion on Mon­day, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP) Suzette Mar­tin, who head­ed the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) dur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, con­firmed that the mat­ter re­mains un­der re­view. 

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day, Mar­tin said, “I’m await­ing a re­port. The mat­ter was dis­charged, so I need to see the court re­port and the re­port from the PSB. At this time, I don’t have the re­ports in front of me.”

On Mon­day, Mas­ter Sarah De Sil­va dis­missed the charges laid 18 months ago against the of­fi­cers af­ter the state failed to present crit­i­cal ev­i­dence, meet dead­lines, or se­cure key wit­ness­es. The of­fi­cers were charged fol­low­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a video in which they were al­leged­ly ex­tort­ing a San­gre Grande busi­ness­man.

De­fence at­tor­ney Ul­ric Sker­rit, who rep­re­sent­ed one of the of­fi­cers, com­ment­ed on the case’s dis­missal, sug­gest­ing that it was in­evitable giv­en the cir­cum­stances. “The court did what it had to do. Un­til the po­lice get their act to­geth­er, this will keep hap­pen­ing,” he said.

He al­so not­ed that the of­fi­cers, fol­low­ing the dis­missal, were en­ti­tled to re­in­state­ment in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

One of the of­fi­cers, who has over 11 years of ser­vice, spoke out about the or­deal, de­scrib­ing it as a har­row­ing be­tray­al by the very sys­tem they served.

Speak­ing anony­mous­ly, the of­fi­cer said, “I am hap­py that some sort of jus­tice has been served, but I am very de­spon­dent. The treat­ment we en­dured was noth­ing short of heart­break­ing.”

The of­fi­cers were charged fol­low­ing what was re­port­ed­ly a sanc­tioned op­er­a­tion tar­get­ing il­le­gal gam­bling es­tab­lish­ments. Months lat­er, they were ac­cused of mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ing funds and con­spir­ing to com­mit rob­bery based on a vi­ral video.

The footage, last­ing just over 90 sec­onds, was wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia in April 2023. It showed three men en­ter­ing the back room of a busi­ness­place where em­ploy­ees were count­ing cash. One man was dressed in po­lice-is­sued cloth­ing, while the oth­ers wore navy blue t-shirts and black car­go pants.

The of­fi­cers were ar­rest­ed on April 24, 2023, fol­low­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the PSB. Af­ter an au­di­ence with Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, charges were laid against them. They ap­peared be­fore the San­gre Grande Mag­is­trates’ Court two days lat­er, fac­ing mul­ti­ple al­le­ga­tions.

In­spec­tor Day­al Ram­lakhan, Act­ing Cor­po­ral Sha­heed Khan, and Po­lice Con­sta­ble Da­vanan Rag­bir were charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice for al­leged­ly cor­rupt­ly ap­pro­pri­at­ing $27,693 seized dur­ing the op­er­a­tion.

Ram­lakhan, Po­lice Con­sta­ble Macai Joseph, and Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice (SRP) Cleon Smith were charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice for al­leged­ly ap­pro­pri­at­ing $12,297. Joseph and Smith were al­so charged with con­spir­ing to per­vert the course of pub­lic jus­tice by know­ing­ly mak­ing false writ­ten state­ments to im­pli­cate a vic­tim in an il­le­gal gam­ing house op­er­a­tion.

Ram­lakhan, Rag­bir, Smith, and SRP Ray­on Charles faced charges for al­leged­ly ap­pro­pri­at­ing $38,500 dur­ing the same op­er­a­tion. Rag­bir and Smith were fur­ther ac­cused of con­spir­ing to per­vert the course of jus­tice. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Ram­lakhan, Po­lice Con­sta­ble Ja­son O’Souna, and Smith were charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice for al­leged­ly ap­pro­pri­at­ing $11,339. Smith faced a sep­a­rate charge of per­vert­ing the course of pub­lic jus­tice by know­ing­ly mak­ing false state­ments.

De­spite these ac­cu­sa­tions, one of the of­fi­cers in­sist­ed that the op­er­a­tion was le­git­i­mate. “This was an of­fi­cial ex­er­cise, ful­ly doc­u­ment­ed with wit­ness­es, in­clud­ing a Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in­ter­preter. There was no wrong­do­ing,” he said.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the case was dis­missed when the pros­e­cu­tion failed to present ev­i­dence, but the of­fi­cer said the ex­pe­ri­ence left an in­deli­ble mark. “Imag­ine be­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer, ded­i­cat­ed to up­hold­ing the law, and find­ing your­self be­hind bars for sev­en days. To this day, I haven’t been able to ful­ly process it,” he said.

The of­fi­cer al­so crit­i­cised the PSB for what he called an in­com­plete in­ves­ti­ga­tion. “The PSB had no ev­i­dence of mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion. None,” he claimed, adding that the or­deal has shak­en his faith in the sys­tem.

The of­fi­cer said re­turn­ing to work will be chal­leng­ing but re­mains com­mit­ted to his du­ty. “Some of us are go­ing back with bro­ken hearts. At the end of the day, God doesn’t sleep,” he said.