Senior Reporter
geisha.kowlessar@guardian.co.tt
Political leader of the National Transformation Alliance (NTA) Gary Griffith has raised concerns about the possible existence of sleeper cells in the Strategic Services Agency (SSA).
Responding directly to Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, who delivered a statement on the SSA in Parliament last Wednesday, the former police commissioner speculated: “You have targeted the SSA but it still exists. We do not know if sleeper cells are still there.”
He further claimed: “Cumuto Barracks was under the Special Anti-Crime Unit when the PNM Government took over. They handed over Cumuto Barracks to the SSA. By doing that hundreds and thousands of rounds (of ammunition) ... the SSA became the custodian for this ammunition, they became the custodian for hundreds of weapons that belonged to the Defence Force and the police.”
Dr Rowley told Parliament the SSA had been compromised with the establishment of a militarised operational unit and had been infiltrated by a religious cult that wanted to replace the country’s political leadership. He also said an audit into the SSA showed the agency purchased high-grade military bolt-action rifles complete with silencers and other accessories, as well as an increased amount of ammunition.
In response, Griffith contended that people were being demonised for attending church.
“That’s what we have reached in this country. It is now being seen as a crime. We are now trying to label church-going people as a Jim Jones cult,” he said.
Griffith claimed that out of the 23 people fired from the SSA, only two were highly involved in the church and all of them had passed polygraph tests.
“This shows T&T that evil is invading our land, that some will see God-fearing people and try to target them,” he said.
The former CoP accused Rowley of being “obsessed” with him. He also wondered why the Government was “still keeping the SSA” after unearthing such information.
“It shows the double standards. So, you remove SORT (Special Operations Response Team) which was instrumental in pegging back every criminal element in this country. It was replaced by something known as the National Operational Task Force (NOTF),” he said.
“Their biggest success in the last two years was arresting an old man for selling books on the pavement.”
He also questioned how an audit could have been done into the SSA when the “person who was in charge of the SSA you have not spoken to.”
Griffith appealed to religious organisations and God-fearing people to “understand what is being done to this country and what was being said by the evil elements.”