RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

Five po­lice of­fi­cers from the North­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force were ac­quit­ted of charges re­lat­ed to ex­tor­tion and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice at the Port-of-Spain High Court yes­ter­day. The court dis­charged the of­fi­cers af­ter the pros­e­cu­tion re­peat­ed­ly failed to present suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to sup­port the al­le­ga­tions.

The five of­fi­cers—PC Jabari Mc In­tyre, PC Kevin Gomez, WPC Lat­i­fah Leza­ma, PC Kee­nen Williams, and PC Evans Mitchell—were ac­cused of so­lic­it­ing $30,000 and five pounds of mar­i­jua­na from a cou­ple dur­ing a search at their home in Five Rivers, Arou­ca, on No­vem­ber 2, 2022.

They were joint­ly charged along with two oth­er of­fi­cers—PC Ki­ran Morang and PC Nicholas Raghoo­bar. While the five of­fi­cers were freed, the cas­es against Morang and Raghoo­bar re­main ac­tive, with a rul­ing ex­pect­ed on No­vem­ber 25.

At­tor­ney Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, rep­re­sent­ing the of­fi­cers, suc­cess­ful­ly ar­gued that the State had not met the ev­i­den­tiary thresh­old, de­spite be­ing giv­en three op­por­tu­ni­ties to do so.

The free­ing of these of­fi­cers comes on the heels of the col­lapse of a high-pro­file case on Mon­day in­volv­ing sev­en po­lice of­fi­cers ac­cused of cor­rup­tion in San­gre Grande.

All charges against them were dis­missed in the Port-of-Spain North A Court. The de­ci­sion came af­ter the pros­e­cu­tion failed to meet court or­ders, present cru­cial ev­i­dence, and en­sure the at­ten­dance of key wit­ness­es.

The sev­en of­fi­cers—In­spec­tor Deyal Ram­lakhan, act­ing Cor­po­ral Sa­heed Khan, Con­sta­bles Cleon Smith, Da­vanan Rag­bir, Macai Joseph, Ja­son O’Souna, and Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice Ray­on Charles—were charged in April 2023 with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice. The charges came af­ter a vi­ral video sur­faced show­ing po­lice of­fi­cers al­leged­ly seiz­ing cash at a busi­ness in San­gre Grande in March 2023. The record­ing ig­nit­ed wide­spread claims of po­lice cor­rup­tion tar­get­ing busi­ness­men in the area.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suzette Mar­tin and the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB), which she led at the time, ar­rest­ed the of­fi­cers on April 24 af­ter con­sult­ing with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

The al­le­ga­tions against the five North­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers arose dur­ing a search con­duct­ed un­der a war­rant at the cou­ple’s res­i­dence. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, cam­ou­flage cloth­ing, mar­i­jua­na, and am­mu­ni­tion were al­leged­ly dis­cov­ered on the premis­es.

The home­own­ers, Rishi and Sari­ta Mungu, were tak­en to the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion. It was there that Rishi claimed he was ap­proached by one of the of­fi­cers and told to pro­vide $30,000 and mar­i­jua­na in ex­change for avoid­ing pros­e­cu­tion.

Rishi re­port­ed­ly com­plied, de­liv­er­ing the re­quest­ed cash and drugs to the sta­tion be­fore he and his wife were re­leased with­out charges. The mat­ter was lat­er re­port­ed to the PSB, prompt­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion led by then-Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Suzette Mar­tin (now DCP)) and a team of in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

The case led to charges be­ing filed on No­vem­ber 14, 2023, against the sev­en of­fi­cers.

The ac­cused of­fi­cers were ini­tial­ly grant­ed bail of $150,000 each and ap­peared be­fore a Jus­tice of the Peace be­fore their case moved to the High Court.

DCP Mar­tin did not re­spond to ques­tions sent to her, nei­ther did Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

Scot­land: Train­ing pro­gramme to tar­get po­lice com­plainants and pros­e­cu­tors com­ing

When con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land em­pha­sised that the min­istry is not re­spon­si­ble for the day-to-day pros­e­cu­tion of mat­ters, as this falls un­der the ex­clu­sive pre­view of the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

Scot­land said the min­istry was cur­rent­ly col­lab­o­rat­ing with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds to de­vel­op a com­pre­hen­sive train­ing pro­gramme for po­lice of­fi­cers. The pro­gramme will fo­cus on en­hanc­ing the ef­fi­cien­cy of of­fi­cers who act as com­plainants and pros­e­cu­tors in le­gal mat­ters.

“We are in the process of work­ing out a train­ing pro­gramme for po­lice of­fi­cers who are com­plainants and pros­e­cu­tors,” Scot­land stat­ed. “We are hop­ing that this will lead to a more ef­fi­cient in­put on the part of the po­lice of­fi­cers be­fore the Mas­ters.”

How­ev­er, when asked about the spe­cif­ic cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the dis­missals of the cas­es, Scot­land de­clined to com­ment, stat­ing that he was not ful­ly ap­prised of the de­tails.