Richard Lord

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­tin Joseph says he "nev­er au­tho­rised the wire- tap­ping of (the phones) of any cit­i­zen of T&T." In an e-mailed state­ment yes­ter­day, Joseph said as min­is­ter, his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in­clud­ed the pol­i­cy for­mu­la­tion, im­ple­men­ta­tion and co-or­di­na­tion of the var­i­ous di­vi­sions in the min­istry. "The same way I could not di­rect the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to ar­rest, I could not di­rect the di­rec­tor of the SIA (Strate­gic In­tel­li­gence Agency) on who to fo­cus his in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing op­er­a­tions," he added.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, the list of pub­lic of­fi­cials whose phones were tapped by the SIA. Joseph said like most cit­i­zens of T&T, "I, too, was shocked" by Per­sad-Bisses­sar's rev­e­la­tions in Par­lia­ment three days ago.

"I look for­ward to clar­i­fi­ca­tion," he added. He said while he was in of­fice, he "was aware that var­i­ous op­er­a­tions of the min­istry need­ed to be more ef­fec­tive­ly mon­i­tored and co-or­di­nat­ed.

"It was for that rea­son that Cab­i­net ap­proval was ob­tained�for the team led by re­tired Ma­jor Gen­er­al Ross to re­view and rec­om­mend the im­prove­ments to the se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus of the State," he added. He said those rec­om­men­da­tions were be­ing im­ple­ment­ed when there was a change in Gov­ern­ment af­ter the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion

Joseph said the SIA, over its 16-year ex­is­tence, "has made valu­able con­tri­bu­tions, not on­ly to the se­cu­ri­ty of the State, but to the (Caribbean) re­gion." He said the SIA "has part­nered with sim­i­lar in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions and agen­cies in the fight against drugs and transna­tion­al crime." He said that ob­jec­tive was met be­cause of the ded­i­ca­tion, com­mit­ment and hard work of the SIA over the past years.

About the SSA

Act No 24 of 1995 es­tab­lished the SSA. It is the cen­tral co-or­di­nat­ing agency for the sup­pres­sion of il­lic­it drug traf­fic.

The main re­spon­si­bil­i­ties are:

�2 to cen­tralise in­for­ma­tion that could fa­cil­i­tate the de­tec­tion and pre­ven­tion of il­lic­it traf­fic in nar­cot­ic drugs, psy­chotrop­ic sub­stances and pre­cur­sors;

�2 to co-or­di­nate op­er­a­tions for the sup­pres­sion of traf­fic;

�2 to pre­pare and up­date a sup­ply/re­duc­tion drug pro­gramme;

�2 to ne­go­ti­ate for­eign tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance for the sup­ply/re­duc­tion pro­gramme; and

�2 to co-op­er­ate and li­aise with the cor­re­spond­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions or ser­vices of oth­er coun­tries.

(www.na­tion­alse­cu­ri­ty.gov.tt/Di­vi­sion­sAgen­cies/.../83/de­fault.as­px.)

What is Sautt

Sautt is an in­tel­li­gence-led, law en­force­ment body.

It was es­tab­lished in 2003 to bol­ster crime- fight­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ty in T&T by pro­vid­ing spe­cial­ist sup­port to part­ner agen­cies.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion was giv­en a spe­cif­ic man­date to tar­get "crimes of na­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance," in­clud­ing gang war­fare, kid­nap­ping for ran­som, ex­tor­tion, or­gan­ised crime and ter­ror­ism.

�2 In 2004, it es­tab­lished the K9 Branch.

�2 In 2006, it es­tab­lished a spe­cial­ist Crime Scene In­sti­ga­tion Unit, and a Spe­cial Ev­i­dence Re­cov­ery Unit in 2007.

�2 In 2006, it es­tab­lished the spe­cial­ist Crime Acad­e­my

�2 In 2008, the Homi­cide In­ves­ti­ga­tion Task Force and the se­cu­ri­ty Stud­ies In­sti­tute were set up among oth­er units. (www.na­tion­alse­cu­ri­ty.gov.tt/LinkClick.as­px?filet­ick­et...tabid=36)