Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

Re­tired Brigadier An­tho­ny Philips-Spencer, the act­ing di­rec­tor of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA), con­duct­ed a two-day in­quiry at the agency.

The in­quiry in­volved of­fi­cers who are as­signed to the Jerusalem Bride (JB church) in Ari­ma.

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that five of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing the Deputy Di­rec­tor of Ad­min­is­tra­tion Joanne Daniel, had their com­pa­ny-is­sued de­vices and clear­ances re­voked.

Up to last night, they re­mained em­ploy­ees of the agency and Daniel had her lap­top and phone re­turned.

How­ev­er, her se­cu­ri­ty clear­ance was not.

Daniel, an ac­tive mem­ber of the church, was the wife of Andy Daniel, a closed-cir­cuit tele­vi­sion (CCTV) con­trac­tor who was mur­dered on the high­way on No­vem­ber 11, 2023.

In­tel­li­gence sources iden­ti­fied the killing of Andy Daniel as a pos­si­ble rea­son for the shake-up tak­ing place at the SSA right now.

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 Roger Best was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave and that T&T Am­bas­sador to the US, An­tho­ny Philips-Spencer was ap­point­ed act­ing di­rec­tor.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th 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.

Pas­tor Ian Al­bert Ezekiel Brown, has come for­ward to claim he is a spy at the SSA be­cause his cov­er was blown when po­lice raid­ed his church on March 9.

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia was told by in­tel­li­gence sources that Brown is ac­tu­al­ly a con­sul­tant to Best at the agency.

Best is one of nine el­ders in Brown’s church.

Brown told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that if he had made him­self pub­lic in the me­dia, the mem­bers of his church who are of­fi­cers would have been fired.

One of the peo­ple who he claimed is on the fir­ing line is his son, who he said was em­ployed at the agency be­fore him.

He said he was “keep­ing watch” over how the mat­ters were han­dled and de­pend­ing on the out­come, would de­ter­mine his next course of ac­tion.

He said, as it stands, he was not asked to be part of the in­quiry and still has his com­pa­ny-is­sued phone and lap­top, as well as his firearm which was is­sued to him from the SSA.

Brown said, in his view, he is still an em­ploy­ee of the SSA and does not be­lieve he had breached the SSA Act.

Sec­tion 5 (2) of the Act said that: “Every em­ploy­ee of the Agency shall, at the com­mence­ment of his du­ties with the Agency, take the oath of al­le­giance and se­cre­cy stat­ed in the Sched­ule.”

Mean­while, Sec­tion 8 (3) said: “Any per­son who con­tra­venes sub­sec­tion (1) is guilty of an of­fence and is li­able on con­vic­tion on in­dict­ment to a fine of one hun­dred thou­sand dol­lars and to im­pris­on­ment for ten years.”

Brown wor­ried about his life

When he spoke to Guardian Me­dia by tele­phone yes­ter­day, Brown said he was on a hill in cen­tral Trinidad.

He said that now that his iden­ti­ty was pub­lic, he was a tar­get.

Brown, who said he host­ed a one-hour spe­cial on Is­sac 98.1, did an in­ter­view with Pow­er 102 yes­ter­day morn­ing in which he re­count­ed his re­la­tion­ships with for­mer and present com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice as well as the for­mer head of the dis­band­ed Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit of T&T, Brigadier Pe­ter Joseph.

He said that his re­la­tion­ship with the in­tel­li­gence world be­gan with Joseph.

The self-de­scribed “very skilled” 70-year-old said that he was a con­trac­tor and a pas­tor and this al­lowed him to get in­for­ma­tion on gangs which was use­ful to the coun­try’s in­tel­li­gence arms.

“I am a threat,” he stat­ed.

His log­ic is his pub­lic­i­ty pre­vents any­thing from hap­pen­ing to him al­though he is pre­pared for all even­tu­al­i­ties now that he has come for­ward.

Asked whether he had ten­ta­cles in oth­er arms of the coun­try’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, he ad­mit­ted to know­ing of­fi­cers through­out giv­en his long as­so­ci­a­tion with dif­fer­ent agen­cies.

How­ev­er, he said it was Best and Daniel, who at­tend his church, who have sup­port­ed him the most be­cause he “just don’t trust the po­lice.”

As for Andy Daniel’s mur­der, Brown claimed he spoke to him weeks be­fore on his safe­ty.

“He didn’t know where his wife was work­ing, he just knew Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. But we sat down a few weeks be­fore and warned him, that the way he was do­ing busi­ness was putting his life in jeop­ardy,” he claimed.

Brown said that Andy Daniel was in­stalling CCTV cam­eras for politi­cians (who he iden­ti­fied) and mem­bers of a re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tion and would re­tain the ad­min rights.

Asked how this could re­late to the SSA shake-up, he said that Andy and Joanne were mem­bers of his church.

Guardian Me­dia asked Brown whether there was a hit squad in the SSA.

“That is far from the truth,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that while em­ployed at the agency, Brown was not vet­ted for the job but earned a month­ly con­sult­ing fee from the agency es­ti­mat­ed to be $25,000 a month.