Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds is dis­tanc­ing him­self from al­le­ga­tions he was the Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial al­lud­ed to by Pas­tor Ian Brown in the on­go­ing Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) probe.

Brown, who came for­ward this week to re­veal he is a spy at the SSA, had claimed the shake-up was be­ing done to pro­tect a Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial.

Brown did not iden­ti­fy the of­fi­cial.

How­ev­er, in­tel­li­gence sources told Guardian Me­dia that Brown was al­lud­ing to Hinds.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day to speak on the mat­ter of the SSA, Hinds said, “For you, this is a sto­ry. For me, this is a mat­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. We have spo­ken to date through the lips of the chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley).”

When asked di­rect­ly to re­spond to the al­le­ga­tion that he was the said Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial in­volved, he re­peat­ed the state­ment and added, “I have noth­ing use­ful to add.”

But in­tel­li­gence sources told Guardian Me­dia that months be­fore, they re­port­ed­ly tried to alert Hinds to the state of af­fairs at the SSA but he was not in­ter­est­ed.

The line min­istry of the SSA is the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

Sources claimed that sev­er­al over­tures were made to Hinds and oth­er se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials to talk about the hir­ing prac­tices at the SSA, the con­flu­ence of church mem­bers at the top of the agency, the chal­lenges be­ing faced by di­rec­tor Ma­jor Roger Best, giv­en his re­li­gious pro­cliv­i­ties, and pas­tor Brown’s deep­en­ing in­flu­ence in the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

The is­sue on­ly be­gan to re­ceive at­ten­tion from the Gov­ern­ment af­ter Andy Daniel, the hus­band of Joanne Daniel, the Deputy Di­rec­tor of In­tel­li­gence at the SSA, was mur­dered.

Andy Daniel, a closed-cir­cuit tele­vi­sion (CCTV) con­trac­tor, was mur­dered on the high­way on No­vem­ber 11 last year.

Guardian Me­dia was told that Andy Daniel had re­port­ed­ly in­stalled se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras at Hinds’ pri­vate res­i­dence.

In­tel­li­gence sources added that they strong­ly be­lieve that Andy Daniel’s death led to the shake-up tak­ing place at the SSA.

Joanne Daniel is an ac­tive mem­ber of Brown’s church and re­port­ed­ly lived with Pas­tor Brown and his wife at their Ari­ma res­i­dence for a pe­ri­od of time.

On March 2, in a Face­book post, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter is­sued a state­ment which said that the di­rec­tor of the SSA, Ma­jor Best, was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave and that T&T Am­bas­sador to the US, An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer, was ap­point­ed act­ing di­rec­tor.

Row­ley said Best was sent on leave based on trou­bling in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC) by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

The in­for­ma­tion, he said, war­rant­ed dras­tic in­ter­ven­tion.

On March 11, Pas­tor Brown came for­ward to claim he was a spy at the SSA be­cause his cov­er was blown when po­lice raid­ed his church on March 9.

How­ev­er, in­tel­li­gence sources told Guardian Me­dia they re­called Brown be­ing an ad­vis­er/con­sul­tant to Best at the agency and that Best is one of nine el­ders in Brown’s church.

The Is­rael trip

In­formed in­tel­li­gence sources told Guardian Me­dia that pas­tor Brown ac­com­pa­nied Best to Is­rael to ob­tain tech­nol­o­gy to lis­ten in on en­crypt­ed What­sApp calls.

Ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­cept of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act, there are on­ly three peo­ple who can au­tho­rise the in­ter­cep­tion of any civil­ian phone: the head of the SSA (then Best), the Chief of the De­fence Force (Dar­ryl Daniel) and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher).

“So this is a pow­er­ful tool that Best had at his dis­pos­al. There is no ac­count­abil­i­ty for this equip­ment which has the pow­er to in­vade one’s pri­va­cy. So the SSA be­came a law un­to them­selves,” a source claimed.

The source ex­plained that at all times, the coun­try’s Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is the voice of the SSA—in Cab­i­net, in Par­lia­ment and on the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

Mean­while, the SSA di­rec­tor re­ports on­ly to Hinds and to the chair of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

“What ac­count­abil­i­ty mech­a­nism did Hinds have in place? Every­thing that the SSA re­quest­ed in a bud­get would have been pre­sent­ed to him and his per­ma­nent sec­re­tary.

“There is a lot of nit­pick­ing which hap­pens in bud­gets. And the min­is­ter has to jus­ti­fy the bud­get he is ask­ing for. So to say the SSA is a rouge agency is let­ting the min­is­ter off the hook. To say there was a plot to over­throw and the min­is­ter does not know is bury­ing his head in the sand or in­com­pe­tence.

“The ar­chi­tec­ture of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty makes that your job as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. Any­thing else is a dere­lic­tion of du­ty,” the source ex­plained.

Brown told Guardian Me­dia that he made him­self pub­lic in the me­dia to pro­tect the mem­bers of his church who are of­fi­cers in the SSA.

One of the peo­ple he claims is on the fir­ing line is his son, who he said was em­ployed at the agency be­fore him. He said he is “keep­ing watch” over how the mat­ters are han­dled and de­pend­ing on the out­come, will de­ter­mine his next course of ac­tion.