RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les says the fa­tal shoot­ing of a man out­side the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port has raised se­ri­ous con­cerns and is prompt­ing a full re­view of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures.

Speak­ing in the wake of the in­ci­dent, Gon­za­les as­sured the pub­lic that the Gov­ern­ment was work­ing with air­port man­age­ment to tight­en se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures.

He added: “This is a mat­ter I take se­ri­ous­ly, and I want to give the as­sur­ance to cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors that the Gov­ern­ment is tak­ing it se­ri­ous­ly as well. We will be work­ing with the air­port man­age­ment to en­sure that we do not have a re­peat of this in the near fu­ture.”.

Gon­za­les com­ments came af­ter 32-year-old Sher­win “Scar” Roberts of D’Abadie was am­bushed and gunned down near the air­port’s ex­it short­ly af­ter re­turn­ing from a trip. Po­lice be­lieve the killing was a tar­get­ed at­tack.

Gon­za­les not­ed that fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions were need­ed.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, what hap­pened at Pi­ar­co Air­port re­quires an in-depth in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine what went wrong with the se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus there,” Gon­za­les said.

“It is some­thing I am tak­ing very se­ri­ous­ly be­cause one can­not—and should not—tol­er­ate these brazen acts of crim­i­nal­i­ty at an in­ter­na­tion­al air­port.”

Com­ment­ing on whether the re­cent spike in mur­ders could be linked to the end of the SOE, Gon­za­les said: “It might be. We are look­ing at it,” he said.

He added: “I have been in con­tact with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and we are look­ing at all those very se­ri­ous acts of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, es­pe­cial­ly the one at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.”

Gon­za­les said na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials had an­tic­i­pat­ed an in­crease in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty fol­low­ing the end of the SOE.

“We had been ex­pect­ing an up­surge in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty af­ter the SOE, but we have no ev­i­dence or in­for­ma­tion that they are cor­re­lat­ed. Still, this is some­thing we have been mon­i­tor­ing close­ly. In many cas­es, the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices and law en­force­ment have been dis­rupt­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.”

He said that while the PNM has been cau­tious about im­ple­ment­ing a SOE as a crime de­ter­rent, his per­son­al view is that the Gov­ern­ment must be pre­pared to use all le­gal tools to pro­tect the pub­lic.

“My per­son­al view is that one must be pre­pared to do what­ev­er it takes—with­in the con­fines of the law—to pro­tect cit­i­zens from crim­i­nals,” Gon­za­les said. “The Gov­ern­ment will look at every­thing at its dis­pos­al to pro­tect cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go. That in­cludes a State of Emer­gency.”

On the is­sue of the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of nurse Odel­la Lal­man- Bap­tiste, Gon­za­les said he was await­ing a brief­ing on the mat­ter.