RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice In­ves­ti­ga­tions and In­tel­li­gence Curt Si­mon has dis­pelled ru­mours that went vi­ral on so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day that the Galil as­sault ri­fle that went miss­ing from a T&T De­fence Force com­pound on Sun­day has been found.

Si­mon con­firmed that the weapon is still miss­ing.

“We have been see­ing the posts on so­cial me­dia but noth­ing as yet. The weapon has not been found,” he said dur­ing a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion.

The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is of­fer­ing a $75,000 re­ward to any­one who can pro­vide in­for­ma­tion that will lead to the ar­rest and pros­e­cu­tion of the peo­ple re­spon­si­ble for the dis­ap­pear­ance of the ri­fle.

There have not been many sub­stan­tial calls so far pro­vid­ing in­for­ma­tion that would lead to a break­through, Guardian Me­dia was told.

They are en­cour­ag­ing peo­ple with in­for­ma­tion to call 555, 800 TIPS. “All calls will be anony­mous. We have no leads at this time,” a po­lice source said.

Si­mon had said on Sun­day dur­ing a joint me­dia con­fer­ence held at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty that they “will leave no stone un­turned in this mat­ter.”

Hours af­ter the Chief of De­fence Staff Air Vice Mar­shall Dar­ryl Daniel and an­oth­er se­nior mem­ber of the T&T De­fence Force dis­closed that there was a miss­ing Galil as­sault ri­fle on Sun­day, al­le­ga­tions start­ed spread­ing like wild­fire. One re­port went vi­ral on so­cial me­dia ear­ly yes­ter­day that the weapon had been found in Ch­aguara­mas and then some­time af­ter mid­day, an­oth­er ru­mour al­leged that the weapon had been found in Bel­mont and that a mem­ber of the T&T Reg­i­ment was in the cus­tody of law en­force­ment of­fi­cers.

How­ev­er, Si­mon dis­pelled the ru­mours.

It was dis­closed on Sun­day by Lt Col Ashook Singh, act­ing Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the T&T Reg­i­ment, that at about 12.30 am on Sun­day, a se­nior of­fi­cer on du­ty was alert­ed by a TTDF mem­ber who was on du­ty and had the ri­fle as­signed to him that the weapon was miss­ing.

An in­ves­ti­ga­tion was im­me­di­ate­ly launched by the TTDF and lat­er by the TTPS in­clud­ing the In­ter-Agency Task Force to find the as­sault ri­fle and bring the per­pe­tra­tor/s to jus­tice.

Daniel, who al­so spoke at Sun­day’s me­dia con­fer­ence, said the in­ci­dent was “very dis­turb­ing” but as­sured that all ef­forts will be put in place to ad­dress it. “Be guid­ed that the de­ci­sions, the rec­om­men­da­tions and the re­quest made by the De­fence Force are in place to pre­vent such in­ci­dents from oc­cur­ring,” he added.

An ex­ten­sive in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tion in­clud­ing mem­bers of the TTDF and the po­lice is cur­rent­ly un­der­way.

Sources at the TTDF Teteron Bar­racks said that up to late yes­ter­day, the bar­racks was still on lock­down as the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­ten­si­fied.

In a re­lease is­sued on Mon­day af­ter­noon, the T&T Reg­i­ment ad­vised that they are aware of “er­ro­neous re­ports made by nu­mer­ous un­ac­cred­it­ed me­dia sources as well as var­i­ous so­cial me­dia plat­forms, on the find­ing of a Galil ri­fle which re­mains un­ac­count­ed for at this time.”

“The Reg­i­ment wish­es to ad­vise the pub­lic, that in­ves­ti­ga­tions are still on­go­ing

in con­junc­tion with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) at this time

and in­for­ma­tion will be forth­com­ing as the in­ves­ti­ga­tion pro­gress­es.”

The re­lease stat­ed that the Reg­i­ment re­mains “com­mit­ted to Guard and De­fend Trinidad and To­ba­go in or­der to en­sure the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of our cit­i­zen­ry and this great na­tion.”