An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter spend­ing close to three days in po­lice cus­tody and un­der­go­ing an un­re­lent­ing in­ter­ro­ga­tion by ju­nior of­fi­cers, an emo­tion­al and vis­i­bly shak­en Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) walked out of the St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion a free woman last evening.

Of­fer­ing a tremu­lous smile as she stood sand­wiched be­tween her le­gal team, Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher clasped her hands and stood silent­ly as the head of her le­gal team, Se­nior Coun­sel (SC) Pamela El­der ad­dressed re­porters.

Con­firm­ing no charges had been prof­fered against Hare­wood-Christo­pher and that this lack of ev­i­dence had led to her client’s even­tu­al re­lease around 5.30 pm, El­der said the top cop had en­dured the in­ter­ro­ga­tion as a sus­pect.

Al­so re­leased from cus­tody around 4.15 pm yes­ter­day af­ter no charges were laid against him was the for­mer di­rec­tor of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) Ma­jor Roger Best, who was ar­rest­ed last Thurs­day.

The two were re­port­ed­ly ques­tioned in re­la­tion to the pro­cure­ment of two high-pow­ered sniper ri­fles for the SSA.

Ad­mit­ting she had ad­vised Hare­wood-Christo­pher against is­su­ing a state­ment at this time, El­der re­ferred to the de­ba­cle that be­gan on Jan­u­ary 30 and the sub­se­quent events that fol­lowed, as “out­ra­geous”.

El­der added, “The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice was ques­tioned not as a per­son from whom the of­fi­cers want­ed in­for­ma­tion, but she was cau­tioned. “We all know, or we should know, that a cau­tion is ad­min­is­tered to a per­son against whom the of­fi­cer has rea­son­able grounds to sus­pect the per­son has com­mit­ted an of­fence.”

Con­firm­ing she had sat through the CoP’s in­ter­view along with her ju­nior at­tor­ney Rus­sell Warn­er, El­der crit­i­cised the process, “At the end of this in­ter­view, it was pel­lu­cid­ly clear that there was not one drop of ev­i­dence against the com­mis­sion­er.”

And in an im­me­di­ate chal­lenge to those spear­head­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, El­der de­mand­ed, “The burn­ing ques­tion which I would like an­swered is who is the se­nior of­fi­cer that au­tho­rised the ar­rest of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice on ma­te­r­i­al that did not es­tab­lish grounds to sus­pect.”

Claim­ing that “cer­tain as­pects of that in­ter­view were un­fair to the com­mis­sion­er,” El­der de­scribed it as odd that a “very ju­nior of­fi­cer” had been the one man­dat­ed to in­ter­ro­gate the top cop.

Salut­ing Hare­wood-Christo­pher for main­tain­ing a sto­ic and calm de­meanour through­out the or­deal, El­der urged, “I want to as­sure the na­tion that they should main­tain faith in their CoP. She is a strong woman; main­tain faith in that of­fice hold­er.”

El­der al­so called on peo­ple to “main­tain faith al­so in the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), who was strong enough ...”

Prais­ing the DPP, Se­nior Coun­sel Roger Gas­pard for his abil­i­ty to dis­cern the “lack of any ev­i­dence,” El­der said, “I am very glad and hap­py that he shows there is a true sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers ex­ist­ing in T&T.”

Turn­ing back to what had prompt­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tors to ar­rest Hare­wood-Christo­pher at her of­fice on Jan­u­ary 30, El­der ques­tioned, “What was the ba­sis for the ar­rest?”

She added, “This is what I keep ask­ing. Why wasn’t she ques­tioned with­out an ar­rest? I will put it in very sim­ple words to tell the po­lice of­fi­cers, ‘Look, get away from here, re­lease the com­mis­sion­er.’”

El­der re­vealed, “Dur­ing the ques­tion­ing, she was told that the of­fi­cers had ev­i­dence that she and oth­er per­sons un­law­ful­ly pro­cured the firearms and am­mu­ni­tion. And the ques­tion I asked of the of­fi­cer is, who are the oth­er per­sons?”

In­di­cat­ing fair­ness dic­tat­ed that her client be in­formed who she was joint­ly ac­cused along­side, the SC said, “The re­sponse of that of­fi­cer was that he would not di­vulge the names of the oth­er per­sons.”

El­der again de­mand­ed to know, “Who or­ches­trat­ed this?” She ques­tioned, “Was it de­signed to hu­mil­i­ate the com­mis­sion­er? Is there a hid­den agen­da some­where there?”

El­der as­sured that these burn­ing ques­tions would be an­swered in due course and in­di­cat­ed that “as her at­tor­ney, I would ad­vise her that this mat­ter not rest here.”

Asked if Hare­wood-Christo­pher was con­sid­er­ing tak­ing le­gal ac­tion, El­der re­spond­ed, “We have to sit and con­sid­er every­thing.”

As to whether or not the CoP would be re­turn­ing to work as nor­mal to­mor­row, that re­mains un­de­cid­ed for now, as El­der said, “That would have to be dis­cussed. We have to put pen to pa­per.”

Even though ques­tions were posed to Hare­wood-Christo­pher as to her state of mind over the two days of in­ter­ro­ga­tion by col­leagues and peers she was sup­posed to be able to trust, the top cop smiled, in­haled, and blinked as El­der in­ter­ject­ed, “Well, not on­ly of­fi­cers you thought you could trust, but of­fi­cers that you be­lieved had a cer­tain de­gree of com­pe­ten­cies. So as I said, it was trau­mat­ic for her, but she re­mained sto­ic through­out, and I com­mend her for that.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment last night, the DPP said, “I ad­vised the po­lice to­day to do fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions and re­vert to me.”

Nu­mer­ous calls and mes­sages to the Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions Suzette Mar­tin, went unan­swered. Rel­a­tives of Hare­wood-Christo­pher gath­ered at her home to cel­e­brate her re­turn late in­to the night.

While Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s hus­band, Thel­don Christo­pher, de­clined to speak with Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing her ar­rival home, a fe­male rel­a­tive said they had been pray­ing for her safe re­turn all along and they were “thank­ing God for his grace and mer­cy.”

TTPS: Com­mis­sion­er re­leased pend­ing fur­ther en­quiries

Mean­while, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) last night stat­ed that Hare­wood-Christo­pher and Best have been re­leased pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“To­day the team of in­ves­ti­ga­tors led by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Suzette Mar­tin, met with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, Mr Roger Gas­pard, SC, who ad­vised that both in­di­vid­u­als be re­leased at this time pend­ing fur­ther en­quiries,” a re­lease stat­ed. Fur­ther up­dates will be pro­vid­ed as the in­ves­ti­ga­tion pro­gress­es, the TTPS added.