Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

For­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith has crit­i­cised the abrupt with­draw­al of for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s state se­cu­ri­ty de­tail, call­ing the move un­pro­fes­sion­al and po­ten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous.

“In fact, such an im­me­di­ate re­moval is un­pro­fes­sion­al, class­less, and lacks any form of se­cu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion­al­ism,” Grif­fith said.

“The prop­er pro­to­col is for the in­di­vid­ual to be re­li­ably in­formed, usu­al­ly by the CoP, and told that, based on a threat as­sess­ment, the de­tail would be re­moved in a few days or weeks. This pro­vides am­ple time for the in­di­vid­ual to ad­just their lifestyle, in­clud­ing ac­quir­ing their own se­cu­ri­ty if they see fit.”

Young was meet­ing con­stituents in his Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West of­fice on Tues­day when Spe­cial Branch of­fi­cers as­signed to him re­port­ed­ly re­ceived in­struc­tions to stand down im­me­di­ate­ly, al­most leav­ing him with­out trans­port. Young con­firmed the se­cu­ri­ty was pulled with­out warn­ing.

Grif­fith urged the pub­lic to look be­yond par­ti­san re­ac­tion and un­der­stand the pro­to­cols in­volved.

“Most Gov­ern­ment sup­port­ers will un­doubt­ed­ly praise the de­ci­sion with high­ly charged com­ments such as ‘it’s good for them,’ while those op­posed to the Gov­ern­ment will con­demn it, see­ing it sole­ly as an act of vin­dic­tive­ness.”

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro con­firmed he re­ceived a di­rec­tive from Cab­i­net and “act­ed with promp­ti­tude,” but Grif­fith warned that Cab­i­net should on­ly make rec­om­men­da­tions and not is­sue in­struc­tions re­gard­ing se­cu­ri­ty de­tails.

“I am not say­ing that this was done in this spe­cif­ic sit­u­a­tion, but if it is, it forces the CoP to ad­here to an in­struc­tion to re­move se­cu­ri­ty with­out a prop­er threat as­sess­ment be­ing done on the sub­ject.” Grif­fith said.

“This breach­es the CoP’s oath of of­fice to prop­er­ly and im­par­tial­ly se­cure each and every cit­i­zen, and ef­fec­tive­ly turns the CoP in­to a tool of politi­cians, which is not rec­om­mend­ed.”

The se­nior Cab­i­net of­fi­cial who con­firmed the re­moval of se­cu­ri­ty at the time, said the lat­est threat as­sess­ment found no on­go­ing risk to Young say­ing the po­lice could now be “placed back in­to the street or at­tached to some­one else.”

For­mer prime min­is­ter Row­ley, who al­so lost his se­cu­ri­ty a few weeks ago, said he didn’t have se­cu­ri­ty un­til Grif­fith made the as­sess­ment dur­ing his time as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and en­sured he was pro­vid­ed with a de­tail.

He said he was “ap­palled to find that the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion had no form of State se­cu­ri­ty” and rec­om­mend­ed pro­tec­tion be as­signed, since that per­son is viewed as “the al­ter­nate Prime Min­is­ter” and a high-risk pub­lic fig­ure. He said even though oth­er Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials at the time ob­ject­ed, the then Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice agreed, and for the first time out­side an elec­tion pe­ri­od, the Op­po­si­tion Leader re­ceived a ded­i­cat­ed se­cu­ri­ty de­tail.

“This de­ci­sion was based on log­ic and an un­der­stand­ing of se­cu­ri­ty, re­mov­ing the pre­vi­ous pet­ti­ness of pri­ori­tis­ing emo­tion­al po­lit­i­cal views over do­ing what is right.” Grif­fith said.

He said the new prece­dent meant that when Row­ley be­came prime min­is­ter and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as­sumed the role of op­po­si­tion leader in 2015, Row­ley’s se­cu­ri­ty de­tail then au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be­came Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s se­cu­ri­ty de­tail as op­po­si­tion leader.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Grif­fith not­ed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar had this pro­tec­tion from 2015 to 2018, be­fore he be­came com­mis­sion­er of po­lice. He added that when he took over as com­mis­sion­er, the se­cu­ri­ty de­tail as­signed to her was “a skele­ton staff,” but “based on in­tel­li­gence I re­ceived, I ac­tu­al­ly in­creased her se­cu­ri­ty de­tail as op­po­si­tion leader whilst I was Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.”

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les still re­tains her state-pro­vid­ed se­cu­ri­ty de­tail.