Mark Bas­sant

Lead Ed­i­tor, In­ves­tiga­tive Desk

Three mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard (TTCG) Spe­cial Naval Unit (SNU), who were part of the Chief of De­fence Staff’s se­cu­ri­ty de­tail, were de­tained for ques­tion­ing in­to the al­leged kid­nap­ping and as­sault of Ted­dy Richards Sylvester, and pos­si­bly his mur­der.

Their ar­rests oc­curred in dra­mat­ic fash­ion yes­ter­day morn­ing, when a spe­cial TTDF unit and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) swooped down on them at the TTDF head­quar­ters in Ch­aguara­mas.

The three sus­pects were ap­pre­hend­ed by a joint army and po­lice team short­ly af­ter Chief of De­fence Staff Dar­ryl Daniel was dri­ven to his of­fice at the TTDF head­quar­ters, where he usu­al­ly re­ports to work at 9 am. With­in min­utes, po­lice sur­round­ed and ar­rest­ed the sus­pects in one of the en­tourage se­cu­ri­ty ve­hi­cles ac­com­pa­ny­ing the CDS.

Se­nior army sources who wit­nessed the in­ci­dent told Guardian Me­dia that the sus­pects were lat­er tak­en to Camp Og­den, where po­lice searched their ve­hi­cles and seized any ev­i­dence that could as­sist them in their in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Sources said the lock­ers of the men were al­so searched late yes­ter­day af­ter­noon at the Ch­aguara­mas base.

The men, all in their thir­ties and from Barataria, Care­nage and St Ann’s, were de­tained for ques­tion­ing in the kid­nap­ping and pos­si­ble as­sault of Sylvester, who was ab­duct­ed from his home in Cameron Hill, Mar­aval, on Jan­u­ary 9.

Res­i­dents dis­cov­ered Sylvester’s body four days lat­er, dumped off Cadet Road in Pe­tit Val­ley.

Se­nior homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was still in its ear­ly stages and that they did not want to prej­u­dice the in­ves­ti­ga­tion un­til they had “spe­cif­ic in­for­ma­tion and ev­i­dence go­ing for­ward.”

They would not con­firm or de­ny that the three sus­pects were in­volved in Sylvester’s mur­der. How­ev­er, in­ves­ti­ga­tors ex­pressed con­cern about in­for­ma­tion re­leased by var­i­ous so­cial me­dia plat­forms hours af­ter the men were de­tained, which they be­lieve could jeop­ar­dise their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors told Guardian Me­dia they were al­so “up­set” that the TTDF de­cid­ed to is­sue a press re­lease on the mat­ter, which was still in “its em­bry­on­ic stages.”

Homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors are al­so work­ing on a pos­si­ble the­o­ry that the three sus­pects who al­leged­ly kid­napped Sylvester may have dropped him off for oth­er per­sons who al­leged­ly mur­dered him, but they are yet to con­firm this the­o­ry.

On Jan­u­ary 9, Sylvester was kid­napped out­side his Cameron Hill home by four armed men wear­ing tac­ti­cal uni­forms with the word “Po­lice” writ­ten across their chests and tak­en away in a black Nis­san X-Trail. In­ves­ti­ga­tors were able to con­firm the Nis­san X-Trail was reg­is­tered to a law en­force­ment agency af­ter re­ceiv­ing in­for­ma­tion from var­i­ous res­i­dents.

Sylvester’s killing bears a sim­i­lar re­sem­blance to the Jan­u­ary 10 mur­der of Drew Tay­lor Kow­lessar, who was shot dead out­side the Drag Mall along Queen Street in Ari­ma by men dressed in black with tac­ti­cal uni­forms with the mark­ing “Po­lice” on their chests.

Sources say a few hours af­ter the men were de­tained, the CDS and Vice Chief of De­fence Staff (VCDS) were called to a meet­ing at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty re­lat­ed to the in­ci­dent.

The TTDF con­firmed in a me­dia re­lease that per­son­nel had been de­tained for ques­tion­ing. They al­so not­ed that they were as­sist­ing the TTPS with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which was at a sen­si­tive stage.