Sto­ries by DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Act­ing Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) di­rec­tor re­tired Brigadier Gen­er­al An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer has been giv­en a month to de­cide whether a for­mer em­ploy­ee, who was among staff ter­mi­nat­ed in a ma­jor shake-up in the or­gan­i­sa­tion in March, should re­ceive his re­main­ing ben­e­fits un­der his con­tract.

On Mon­day, at­tor­neys Ar­den Williams and Don Marie Adolphe sent a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to Phillips-Spencer threat­en­ing le­gal ac­tion un­less their client David Ben­jamin is paid for the full re­mu­ner­a­tion that he would have re­ceived had his three-year con­tract not been ter­mi­nat­ed on March 23.

Ben­jamin’s lawyers es­ti­mat­ed the to­tal sep­a­ra­tion pack­age he should have re­ceived, in­clud­ing 14 months’ salary, at $427,024.97.

“His de­mand is an un­der­tak­ing to meet this oblig­a­tion,” Adolphe said.

Ben­jamin’s lawyers claimed that he was hired as an in­ves­ti­ga­tor on May 13, 2022, un­der the tenure of for­mer SSA di­rec­tor Ma­jor Roger Best.

They point­ed out that in cor­re­spon­dence in­form­ing Ben­jamin of his ter­mi­na­tion, the SSA claimed that the de­ci­sion was made be­cause the po­si­tion he held was ei­ther abol­ished or no longer rel­e­vant.

They al­so sug­gest­ed that their client was told that the Tac­ti­cal Re­sponse Team/Spe­cial Re­sponse Team, of which he was a mem­ber, did not ex­ist with­in the SSA’s or­gan­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture.

They not­ed that there were no al­le­ga­tions that he breached his con­tract or en­gaged in mis­con­duct.

“Though you had the au­thor­i­ty to re­cruit/con­tract my client, your of­fice made a ma­te­r­i­al mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of fact which in­duced him to con­tract,” Adolphe said.

“What is deeply con­cern­ing is that your of­fice must have known whether it had the au­thor­i­ty to com­ply and con­tract with my client,” she added.

Phillips-Spencer was giv­en 28 days in which to meet Ben­jamin’s de­mands be­fore he filed his law­suit.

In ear­ly March, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced that Phillips-Spencer had been re­called from his post as am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed States to re­place Best, who was placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave.

The Prime Min­is­ter stat­ed that the change was due to a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty threat that was re­port­ed to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil which he chairs.

Best was even­tu­al­ly ter­mi­nat­ed on May 18, while he and three oth­ers were be­ing ques­tioned by the po­lice in re­la­tion to the al­leged il­le­gal trans­fer of weapons.

Sev­er­al days lat­er, self-pro­fessed spy, Ian Ezekiel Brown, who serves as the pas­tor of a church; for­mer Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) mem­ber Sgt Sher­win Wal­dron; and for­mer SSA se­cu­ri­ty su­per­vi­sor Portell Grif­fith were slapped with mul­ti­ple mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice charges re­lat­ed to the al­leged trans­fer and il­le­gal pos­ses­sion of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion.

Best was not charged along­side them.

Lat­er in March, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed, ex­clu­sive­ly, that 12 Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency em­ploy­ees were fired as the probe in­to the agency’s op­er­a­tions con­tin­ued.

Speak­ing re­cent­ly on the is­sue, the Prime Min­is­ter not­ed that the Gov­ern­ment act­ed de­ci­sive­ly af­ter be­ing “blind­sided” by the de­ba­cle.

“We ex­pect that we will rec­ti­fy it and re­turn the agency to its pur­pose,” he had said.