Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

Twelve Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) em­ploy­ees have been fired so far as the probe in­to the agency’s op­er­a­tions con­tin­ues un­der Brigadier An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer. Some were fired af­ter they failed poly­graph test­ing, the Sun­day Guardian was told.

At least five of the fired mem­bers, in­clud­ing Joanne Daniel, are from the cy­ber de­fence and cy­ber op­er­a­tions units. The son of Pas­tor Ian Brown, the self-pro­claimed 67-year-old spy of the SSA, was al­so at­tached to that unit. Brown has now been stripped of his SRP sta­tus by the TTPS.

Mean­while, the Sun­day Guardian was al­so in­formed that an of­fi­cial and eight oth­er em­ploy­ees at the SSA have been linked to se­ri­ous crim­i­nal con­duct.

Ini­tial­ly, three mur­ders were linked to the SSA probe be­ing un­der­tak­en by Phillips-Spencer, but this has ex­pand­ed to in­clude the death of oth­er in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing a well-known al­leged gang­ster.

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing leads in­to these oth­er mur­ders as it is al­leged that there were of­fi­cers with­in the in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing agency op­er­at­ing rogue of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

Last week, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) seized sev­er­al guns from the or­gan­i­sa­tion. The guns are ex­pect­ed to un­der­go foren­sic test­ing to see whether they can be iden­ti­fied with any mur­ders now linked to the probe.

The Sun­day Guardian re­port­ed last week that three mur­ders—the 2019 mur­ders of Bryan Fe­lix and Aleem Khan, whose bod­ies were found in a forest­ed part of Cu­mu­to on Oc­to­ber 13, 2019, and CCTV cam­era con­trac­tor Andy Daniel—were linked to the SSA probe.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors are re­port­ed­ly look­ing at the sim­i­lar­i­ty in pat­terns be­tween the mur­ders of Daniel and al­leged gang­ster An­thon “Bom­bay” Boney in Sep­tem­ber 2021.

On Sep­tem­ber 8, 2021, it was re­port­ed that Boney was dri­ving his ve­hi­cle north along the Uri­ah But­ler High­way when he stopped just af­ter the Ca­roni fly­over. Po­lice re­ports had stat­ed that a dark-coloured SUV pulled up along­side him, and a man, dressed in black with a face­mask, ex­it­ed and ap­proached his car. The per­son in­quired if Boney was the own­er of the ve­hi­cle, af­ter which ex­plo­sions were heard. The ve­hi­cle re­port­ed­ly veered off the road­way and in­to a ditch while the get­away SUV sped off.

In the case of Daniel, he was shot and killed, while parked on the north­bound lane of the Uri­ah But­ler High­way, near the Ca­roni over­pass around mid­day on No­vem­ber 11, 2023.

It was re­port­ed that Daniel’s as­sailants who were in a black Nis­san X-Trail SUV stopped be­hind him on the shoul­der. They got out of their car, shot him sev­er­al times, and fled the scene.

Daniel was the hus­band of the then deputy di­rec­tor of in­tel­li­gence at the SSA. It was his mur­der which alert­ed the Gov­ern­ment that there was some ex­po­sure to the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Andy Daniel, who in­stalled cam­eras for sev­er­al gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, kept the ad­min­is­tra­tion rights to the sys­tems he set up.

It was his ad­min­is­tra­tion rights to the cam­era sys­tems, in­clud­ing those of some of the coun­try’s top of­fi­cials, busi­ness­men, and gang­sters (all named), which he could re­mote­ly tap in­to at any giv­en point, which made it a valu­able com­mod­i­ty for in­tel­li­gence and crim­i­nal el­e­ments, for use and abuse.

Probe in­to SSA

On March 2, di­rec­tor Ma­jor Roger Best was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave, and Brigadier Phillips-Spencer was ap­point­ed act­ing di­rec­tor.

Days be­fore Best was sent, the Spe­cial Branch re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions about the dou­ble mur­der in Cu­mu­to.

For months be­fore Daniel’s death, in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cials tried to raise con­cerns to gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials to talk about how the SSA was be­ing run by di­rec­tor Best—in­clud­ing the con­flu­ence of church mem­bers at the top of the agency who were be­ing heav­i­ly in­flu­enced by Pas­tor Brown, the chal­lenges be­ing faced with Best giv­en his re­li­gious pro­cliv­i­ties (he is an el­der at Brown’s church), and op­er­a­tions tak­ing place that were be­yond the re­mit of the SSA, all fund­ed by tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars.

The Gov­ern­ment has sought in­ter­na­tion­al as­sis­tance to de­ter­mine how much and to what ex­tent the State’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus is com­pro­mised and how to ad­dress it ef­fec­tive­ly.

Dr Row­ley had said Best was sent on leave based on trou­bling in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil by the TTPS. The in­for­ma­tion, he said, war­rant­ed dras­tic in­ter­ven­tion.

Last week, at a sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny, Dr Row­ley al­lud­ed to crim­i­nal el­e­ments in the SSA.

“As I speak to you now, the prob­lem has mul­ti­plied be­cause, for the last two weeks, we have been deal­ing with the State’s con­tri­bu­tion to that prob­lem, where the state au­thor­i­ty in a po­si­tion of trust has sur­rep­ti­tious­ly bro­ken down and the ca­lyp­so that we lis­ten to, Who’s Go­ing to Guard the Guards, be­came the most per­ti­nent ques­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause the state agen­cies had be­come one with the crim­i­nal agen­cies.”

Re­gard­ing a re­port that he was miss­ing, Brown, who spoke to the Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day, re­mains in hid­ing.