SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

Shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA), the coun­try’s top in­tel­li­gence unit, has been at the cen­tre of con­tro­ver­sy for months—ac­cused of plot­ting to over­throw the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship, stock­pil­ing mil­i­tary-grade weapons, and hir­ing in­di­vid­u­als linked to a cult.

Now, to re­store cred­i­bil­i­ty and sta­bil­i­ty, the Gov­ern­ment has ap­point­ed a new head: Arthur Bar­ring­ton.

Bar­ring­ton re­places Am­bas­sador An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer, who was brought in a year ago to clean up the SSA fol­low­ing the dis­missal of Ma­jor Roger Best in May.

Best was fired af­ter be­ing de­tained and ques­tioned by po­lice, a move that lat­er led to crim­i­nal charges against three SSA em­ploy­ees—Pas­tor Ian Brown, self-pro­claimed spy Sgt Sher­win Wal­dron, and Su­san Portell-Grif­fith—for the unau­tho­rised trans­fer of pro­hib­it­ed firearms from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to the SSA.

The SSA al­so ter­mi­nat­ed 28 of its em­ploy­ees as part of a house-clean­ing ex­er­cise.

Last Ju­ly, then-prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley read in­to Hansard a state­ment on the au­dit con­duct­ed by Phillips-Spencer, which re­vealed that un­der Best’s lead­er­ship, the SSA had amassed mil­i­tary-grade weapons and am­mu­ni­tion, op­er­at­ing a high­ly trained and mil­i­tarised “Tac­ti­cal Re­sponse Unit”.

The au­dit al­so un­cov­ered dis­turb­ing prac­tices of nepo­tism, with a con­cen­tra­tion of mem­bers from one church be­ing hired, as well as dis­hon­esty and deep de­cep­tion, erod­ing pub­lic trust in the agency.

“Such per­sons be­longed to a cult which was arm­ing it­self while preach­ing a doc­trine for trained mil­i­tary and para­mil­i­tary per­son­nel with a re­li­gious call­ing to be the most suit­able per­sons to re­place the coun­try’s po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship,” Dr Row­ley said. “They were ex­ert­ing high lev­els of in­flu­ence on the af­fairs of the agency to the detri­ment of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.”

In Feb­ru­ary, Brown, Portell-Grif­fith, and Wal­dron—charged in May 2024 with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice over the al­leged trans­fer of four pro­hib­it­ed TTPS firearms to the SSA—were dis­charged af­ter pros­e­cu­tors failed to com­ply with court pro­ce­dures.

Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin as­sured that these de­vel­op­ments would not af­fect the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the SSA.

Bar­ring­ton’s ap­point­ment, ef­fec­tive April 1, was an­nounced on Thurs­day by Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence. Young stat­ed that Bar­ring­ton would pro­vide much-need­ed sta­bil­i­ty in the wake of re­cent events at the SSA.

'Ex­ten­sive wealth of knowl­edge in in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing'

With a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence in in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing and in­ves­ti­ga­tions, Bar­ring­ton is be­ing de­scribed as “the best can­di­date” for the top post. Sup­port­ing his se­lec­tion were TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Gideon Dick­son, for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams, and a for­mer ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer. They agreed that based on Bar­ring­ton’s ex­per­tise, he would bring tremen­dous val­ue to the SSA and the State.

Weigh­ing in on the new ap­point­ment, Williams said he has known Bar­ring­ton for al­most his en­tire polic­ing ca­reer.

“He is a ca­reer po­lice of­fi­cer. I have known him, and for the bulk of his years, he has been work­ing out of the Spe­cial Branch. He is very knowl­edge­able, ex­pe­ri­enced, and has the ex­per­tise with­in the do­main of in­tel­li­gence.”

Williams em­pha­sised that the SSA di­rec­tor po­si­tion re­quires some­one with these skills and knowl­edge.

“That’s where he is supreme­ly qual­i­fied. In fact, for me, he is more qual­i­fied than the ma­jor­i­ty of per­sons who have been lead­ing the SSA over the many years.”

Asked if Bar­ring­ton is the right fit for the job, Williams replied, “He is more than a right fit. But the tim­ing for me is a con­cern be­cause you nev­er know what hap­pens at elec­tion time … and then the pol­i­tics come in­to play. When you are a pro­fes­sion­al, you don’t re­al­ly need to be in the mid­dle of that kind of dy­nam­ic.”

A for­mer ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said Bar­ring­ton re­tired from the TTPS af­ter 40 years of ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice with an un­blem­ished record.

“Bar­ring­ton nev­er faced any dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ing in the ser­vice. He start­ed as a con­sta­ble and moved up the ranks. The last po­si­tion Bar­ring­ton held was act­ing as­sis­tant com­mis­sion­er of Spe­cial Branch when he pro­ceed­ed on leave. But his sub­stan­tive rank was se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent.”

Bar­ring­ton worked in dif­fer­ent ar­eas of Spe­cial Branch and spent a few years in CID. The for­mer ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer not­ed that Bar­ring­ton was trained as an in­tel­li­gence an­a­lyst and in an­ti-ter­ror­ism and transna­tion­al crime in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“He has a first de­gree in se­cu­ri­ty and risk man­age­ment and has done nu­mer­ous cours­es with the Unit­ed Na­tions and through Spe­cial Branch.”

Giv­en his qual­i­fi­ca­tions, the for­mer ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer de­scribed the ap­point­ment as a good choice.

“It was a good thing to see that a per­son with a law en­force­ment back­ground is now giv­en such an op­por­tu­ni­ty to run the SSA.”

Con­grat­u­lat­ing Bar­ring­ton, Dick­son said the SSA stands to gain from his “ex­ten­sive wealth of knowl­edge in in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing and in­ves­ti­ga­tions.”

“He can be con­sid­ered an ex­pert in this field. Thus, we are con­fi­dent that he will bring tremen­dous val­ue to the unit and, by ex­ten­sion, the State.”

Re­peat­ed calls to Bar­ring­ton’s cell­phone be­tween Fri­day and yes­ter­day went unan­swered.

No word on fi­nal re­port

Last No­vem­ber, Dr Row­ley was asked in Par­lia­ment by Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal if the fi­nal re­port of an au­dit of per­son­nel, equip­ment and process­es at the SSA had been com­plet­ed and sub­mit­ted to the Gov­ern­ment by Phillips-Spencer.

Row­ley said while the probe in­to the agency was not yet com­plet­ed, the Gov­ern­ment had re­ceived in­ter­im re­ports on as­pects of that op­er­a­tion.

One of the doc­u­ments, he said, the Gov­ern­ment had ob­tained was a new or­gan­i­sa­tion­al chart which was be­fore the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil for con­sid­er­a­tion.

How­ev­er, Dr Row­ley said the work would con­tin­ue and the fi­nal re­port will be avail­able in the not too dis­tant fu­ture. Guardian Me­dia was un­able to find out when this re­port would be made avail­able.

SSA con­tro­ver­sy

Over its 30-year his­to­ry, the SSA has been fraught with con­tro­ver­sy in­volv­ing some of its di­rec­tors.

Un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment led by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the ap­point­ment of ju­nior tech­ni­cian Resh­mi Ram­nar­ine in 2011 caused a na­tion­al scan­dal.

Ram­nar­ine by­passed 22 se­nior of­fi­cers to be ap­point­ed to the top post, spark­ing pub­lic out­rage and lead­ing to her dis­missal. Best’s re­moval al­so came amid con­tro­ver­sy.

Es­tab­lished in 1995, the SSA Act de­fines the agency’s mis­sion as con­tribut­ing to the se­cu­ri­ty of T&T and its peo­ple by “cre­at­ing and de­liv­er­ing the high­est qual­i­ty in­tel­li­gence, op­er­a­tional sup­port, and train­ing prod­ucts and ser­vices to our lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners to de­tect, pre-empt, dis­rupt, and dis­man­tle cur­rent and emerg­ing threats.”