JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Con­flict­ing ac­counts have emerged over the ar­rest of ten men out­side the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (ECRC) in San­ta Rosa yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said the men were de­tained as part of an al­leged plot to mur­der law en­force­ment of­fi­cers, claim­ing they were found with a stolen ve­hi­cle and a re­volver. But act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Hay­den Forde dis­missed the claim, in­sist­ing the men were sim­ply wait­ing for an in­mate to be re­leased.

In a voice record­ing, Gue­var­ro said: “The TTPS ob­tained par­tic­u­lar in­tel­li­gence which sug­gest­ed that per­sons were in­tent on car­ry­ing out an at­tack against law en­force­ment at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre.

“I im­me­di­ate­ly co­or­di­nat­ed with DCP Suzette Mar­tin and a covert op­er­a­tion was launched. This covert op­er­a­tion yield­ed fruit ear­li­er to­day with the de­ten­tion of ten sus­pects.”

Forde, how­ev­er, of­fered a dif­fer­ent ex­pla­na­tion: “My un­der­stand­ing is that per­sons were there to re­ceive an in­di­vid­ual who was be­ing bailed. So, it is not as though some­one or per­sons were there to treat with of­fi­cers. Po­lice of­fi­cers car­ried out a search, and based on that, per­sons were tak­en in­to cus­tody.”

In a me­dia re­lease, the TTPS linked the ar­rests to the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE), say­ing in­tel­li­gence sug­gest­ed that in­mates, with help from crim­i­nal as­so­ciates out­side, were plot­ting to kill pub­lic of­fi­cials and mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices. Po­lice said the sus­pects at­tempt­ed to flee but were ap­pre­hend­ed short­ly af­ter.

Gue­var­ro claimed the men were caught with a stolen Toy­ota Aqua and a re­volver.

“They rolled in with their stolen wheels this morn­ing and their bor­rowed brava­do. But when mis­guid­ed loy­al­ty meets trained re­solve, it is not the law that will flee — it is the law that will fin­ish the job,” he warned.

He added that the TTPS would de­fend its of­fi­cers and cit­i­zens “with the full weight of our op­er­a­tional ca­pa­bil­i­ties” against any threats.

The ar­rests came just a day af­ter de­tainees at ECRC at­tempt­ed to ri­ot, de­mand­ing to meet with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, claim­ing they were be­ing un­just­ly de­tained un­der pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­ders.

Asked if the sup­posed plot was linked to that un­rest, Forde said no.

“If in­mates feel their in­car­cer­a­tion is un­jus­ti­fied, their at­tor­neys can pe­ti­tion the spe­cial tri­bunal. Yes, there was an at­tempt by some in­mates to cre­ate a dis­tur­bance, and that at­tempt was quick­ly brought un­der con­trol.”

He said none of his of­fi­cers were in­jured and not­ed that the prison ser­vice would use its “use of force” pol­i­cy if at­tacked.

The Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion has since raised con­cerns about se­cu­ri­ty at the fa­cil­i­ty.

Gen­er­al sec­re­tary Lester Lo­gie said: “In the last SoE, we re­quest­ed army pres­ence around the prison fa­cil­i­ties. We need to in­crease dy­nam­ic se­cu­ri­ty, and hope­ful­ly, with an in­ci­dent like this, re­sources will be beefed up.”

He al­so re­newed calls for firearms to be is­sued to prison of­fi­cers.

“We are call­ing on the Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter Alexan­der to pass the nec­es­sary leg­is­la­tion to arm not just prison of­fi­cers but all mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices,” Lo­gie said.

Forde ad­mit­ted man­pow­er short­ages made con­stant se­cu­ri­ty dif­fi­cult, but said in the past, po­lice of­fi­cers were some­times as­signed to mon­i­tor pris­ons dur­ing high-risk pe­ri­ods.

De­spite the dif­fer­ing ac­counts, Gue­var­ro stressed the TTPS re­mains vig­i­lant.

“While that im­me­di­ate threat has been neu­tralised, crim­i­nal el­e­ments out­side the prison sys­tem are still in­tent on ex­e­cut­ing the di­rec­tives of their im­pris­oned lead­ers.”