Close to three years af­ter their re­la­tion­ship turned sour, the gun talk be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and for­mer Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, and Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith con­tin­ues.

Last Wednes­day was the lat­est chap­ter in emo­tive ex­changes be­tween the two, with Dr Row­ley re­peat­ing the claim in Par­lia­ment that there were nu­mer­ous anom­alies in the is­suance of FULs dur­ing Grif­fith’s stint as head of the po­lice ser­vice—some­thing Grif­fith again de­nied.

The NTA Leader ac­cused the Prime Min­is­ter of hav­ing a ‘dan­ger­ous in­fat­u­a­tion” with le­gal firearms - one, he claims, con­tin­ues to over­shad­ow the scourge of il­le­gal firearms.

Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk looks at T&T’s gun dilem­ma.

Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Al­though for­mer Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith is­sued be­tween 6,000 to 7,000 firearm li­cences be­tween Au­gust 2018 and Sep­tem­ber 2021, rep­re­sent­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 36 per cent of all reg­is­tered own­ers, T&T has one of the low­est rates of reg­is­tered gun own­er­ship in Cari­com.

As of 2022, T&T had 19,434 reg­is­tered firearms, rank­ing eighth in Cari­com for the most reg­is­tered firearms per 100 res­i­dents, with an av­er­age of 1.27, ac­cord­ing to da­ta from the 2023 Cari­com Im­pacs’ Weapon Com­pass Caribbean Firearms Study.

T&T’s fig­ure was based on 2022 sta­tis­tics.

Suri­name (5.46), Be­lize (3.47), St Vin­cent (2.70), Ja­maica (1.85), An­tigua and Bar­bu­da (1.68) and St. Lu­cia (1.50) all had more reg­is­tered firearm own­ers per 100 res­i­dents.

In 2008, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) es­ti­mat­ed that there were 10,550 firearm li­cence hold­ers in the coun­try, mean­ing that there was ap­prox­i­mate­ly an 84 per cent in­crease in firearm li­cence hold­ers be­tween 2008 and 2022.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cari­com Im­pacs study, le­gal firearm own­er­ship in the re­gion is tight­ly reg­u­lat­ed and there is a low rate of le­gal civil­ian firearm own­er­ship com­pared with the glob­al av­er­age. How­ev­er, when it comes to homi­cides, the area has three times the glob­al av­er­age for vi­o­lent deaths, with more than half of homi­cides in­volv­ing the use of firearms.

“Ja­maica, Haiti, Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the Ba­hamas are among the coun­tries with the high­est per­cent­ages of firearms-re­lat­ed homi­cides at 90, 84,78, and 75 per cent of to­tal homi­cides,” the re­port said.

The re­port stat­ed that smug­gled or lo­cal­ly-made guns (il­le­gal­ly owned) are wide­ly as­sumed to “great­ly out­num­ber legal­ly owned firearms.”

The Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) es­ti­mat­ed in 2022 that there were at least 12,000 il­le­gal firearms in the coun­try.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Dau­rius Figueira has been on record say­ing that he be­lieves the re­al fig­ure is “three times more than that.” Oth­er crim­i­nol­o­gists have al­so stat­ed the fig­ure is like­ly high­er than the SSA’s es­ti­mate.

Il­le­gal guns have wreaked hav­oc on the streets of T&T.

More than 4,719 peo­ple were mur­dered be­tween 2014 and Sep­tem­ber 2023, with il­le­gal guns ac­count­ing for be­tween 75 and 80 per cent of killings. Il­le­gal firearms were used in 8,472 fa­tal and non-fa­tal se­ri­ous crimes be­tween 2016-2022 alone, ac­cord­ing to SSA da­ta.

“Do­mes­tic sources of il­lic­it small arms and am­mu­ni­tion gen­er­al­ly in­clude the di­ver­sion of na­tion­al stock­piles held by de­fence and se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies, the di­ver­sion of civil­ian hold­ings, il­lic­it ‘craft’ pro­duc­tion, and the re­cir­cu­la­tion of al­ready il­lic­it weapons in the un­der­ground mar­ket.

“Most Caribbean of­fi­cials in­ter­viewed—and of­fi­cial doc­u­men­ta­tion re­viewed—by the sur­vey in­di­cat­ed that the ma­jor­i­ty of il­lic­it firearms come from abroad, in­clud­ing from neigh­bour­ing states and the US main­land. In some coun­tries, the il­lic­it firearms are then loaned or sold by crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions to their mem­bers or oth­er il­lic­it end users.

“These claims were echoed by many of the in­mates in­ter­viewed in Be­lize, Suri­name, and Trinidad and To­ba­go for this project, the ma­jor­i­ty of whom in­di­cat­ed that they (or the crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions in which they were in­volved) ac­quired their firearms from for­eign sources. Their re­spons­es are not sur­pris­ing giv­en the strict con­trols on the sale and pos­ses­sion of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion in many Caribbean states, and the com­par­a­tive­ly lim­it­ed num­ber of do­mes­tic sources (di­ver­sion points) of arms and am­mu­ni­tion in these states,” the Cari­com Im­pacs’ re­port said.

How­ev­er, de­spite the threat posed by il­le­gal firearms, the num­ber of il­le­gal guns re­cov­ered by the TTPS de­clined by 33 per cent be­tween 2018 and 2023. Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics pro­vid­ed by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds in Par­lia­ment ear­li­er this year, 4,956 il­le­gal firearms and 104,737 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion were re­cov­ered. The high­est num­ber of re­cov­er­ies of il­lic­it firearms, 988, came in 2018. The low­est was in 2021, with 681 firearms. In 2023, 709 firearms were re­cov­ered.

Nyree Al­fon­so, di­rec­tor of the Firearms Train­ing In­sti­tute Lim­it­ed, said there is an un­healthy, un­ex­plained con­cen­tra­tion on le­gal firearm own­ers by the Gov­ern­ment.

“To me, it makes no sense. It is down­right strange to have this pro­lif­er­a­tion of crime in the coun­try com­mit­ted by il­le­gal firearms by the crim­i­nal el­e­ments, un­less you have co­gent and com­pelling proof it is com­ing from the le­gal deal­ers, then shut up or put up.

“I agree with Gary, come and ar­rest us if you think we are flood­ing the mar­ket with am­mu­ni­tion. Ar­rest some­body, but un­til such time, why put the blame there? Cause those are con­ve­nient scape­goats? We don’t have a han­dle on crime. Con­cen­trate on that.

“We have an unar­guable in­flux of il­le­gal firearms and il­le­gal am­mu­ni­tion and you felt the plas­ter for that is to ban the le­gal im­por­ta­tion of arms and am­mu­ni­tion? I don’t see the cor­re­la­tion. TTPS and De­fence Force bul­lets have been turn­ing up on peo­ple’s crime scenes, did you ban am­mu­ni­tion from be­ing in their hands?” she said.

Al­fon­so, an at­tor­ney, suc­cess­ful­ly rep­re­sent­ed her hus­band Towfeek Ali, a firearms deal­er, in a 2023 law­suit against the Of­fice of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er over a de­lay in con­sid­er­ing ap­pli­ca­tions to im­port am­mu­ni­tion. The de­lay was ruled un­law­ful by Jus­tice Kevin Ram­cha­ran, paving the way for firearms deal­ers to re­sume im­por­ta­tions. The mat­ter was ap­pealed and is await­ing a ver­dict.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to Al­fon­so, while the mat­ter was be­fore the courts, the Gov­ern­ment suc­cess­ful­ly lob­bied the US gov­ern­ment to “ef­fec­tive­ly ban” the le­gal im­por­ta­tion of arms and am­mu­ni­tion. In April, the US an­nounced new re­stric­tions on firearm im­ports in an at­tempt to lim­it the use of US-made guns in for­eign crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. Sev­er­al oth­er coun­tries, in­clud­ing Ja­maica, Yemen, Pe­ru, Guyana, Ecuador and Burk­i­na Fa­so, were placed on the re­stric­tive list, which Al­fon­so said com­pris­es coun­tries un­able to man­age the im­por­ta­tion of le­gal firearms and am­mu­ni­tion with­out di­ver­sion to il­le­gal caus­es.

Al­fon­so called the re­stric­tions coun­ter­pro­duc­tive as they don’t ad­dress the source of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion used for crimes and will re­sult in a short­age of am­mu­ni­tion and ex­pired am­mu­ni­tion be­ing used.

“You make a prob­lem and put a plas­ter on it, but you are still bleed­ing to death over there. We didn’t know that two years ago to this month, the then Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob banned the le­gal im­por­ta­tion of arms and am­mu­ni­tion in­to Trinidad.

“He did so by sim­ply re­fus­ing to grant any ap­pli­ca­tions for arms and am­mu­ni­tion. That is 2022. How did that im­pact crime in the last two years? Do you think there was a fall-off in the num­bers with re­spect to crime af­ter that? Clear­ly not, and you are still find­ing all that am­mu­ni­tion out there, right? So clear­ly there is not a short­age of am­mu­ni­tion there.

“Those peo­ple (crim­i­nals) are not buy­ing from deal­ers. They are not in­ter­est­ed in im­port­ing and pay­ing VAT and du­ties on the am­mu­ni­tion. I am sure the po­lice know bet­ter than me where the il­le­gal firearms and am­mu­ni­tion are com­ing from and be­ing stored and what’s the source.

“I am ab­solute­ly cer­tain it’s not the deal­ers...So what are you try­ing to tell me, that a crim­i­nal could bring in an AR-15, which we (le­gal deal­ers) can’t by the way —au­to­mat­ic AR-15—if you could bring in the gun, you not go­ing to be able to bring in the am­mu­ni­tion for it? You are go­ing to look for a le­gal deal­er to get you il­le­gal am­mu­ni­tion for it?” she ar­gued.

Al­fon­so dis­missed the Prime Min­is­ter’s ref­er­enc­ing of an au­dit which not­ed that in­di­vid­ual deal­ers were grant­ed mil­lions of rounds of as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tion and tens of thou­sands of guns. She said im­port­ing that quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion makes lit­tle busi­ness sense as am­mu­ni­tion ex­pires and there isn’t a large enough de­mand to sell those prod­ucts in that amount.

Guardian Me­dia re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion from the TTPS about the num­ber of homi­cides com­mit­ted with le­gal firearms in the last five years but the re­quest was on­ly ac­knowl­edged by the Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Branch which in­di­cat­ed that the Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions De­part­ment has to send the re­quest. Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions did not re­spond to the re­quest up to press time.

Last Wednes­day, quot­ing in­for­ma­tion from the Bar­ring­ton/Pritchard re­port in Par­lia­ment, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley said around 100 le­gal firearms were used in mur­ders, sui­cides and rob­beries be­tween 2017 and 2021. He added that based on in­tel­li­gence re­ceived from for­eign part­ners, 30 firearms im­port­ed by li­censed firearms deal­ers were found in the pos­ses­sion of peo­ple who were not Firearm User Li­cence (FUL) hold­ers and were al­so used in crimes. This con­tra­dicts Grif­fith’s claim that no le­gal firearms were used to com­mit crimes dur­ing his tenure as CoP.

The re­port read by Dr Row­ley stat­ed that sev­er­al TTPS of­fi­cers were in­volved in the lu­cra­tive busi­ness side of the ac­qui­si­tion and train­ing of civil­ians and cer­tain mem­bers of the TTPS and some firearms deal­ers were charg­ing large sums of mon­ey for suc­cess­ful ap­pli­ca­tions for FULs.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Madam Speak­er, dur­ing the pe­ri­od Au­gust 2018 and Sep­tem­ber 2021, there was an enor­mous rise in the grant of im­port per­mits to cer­tain favoured firearm deal­ers for the im­por­ta­tion of firearms, am­mu­ni­tion, and firearm com­po­nents/ac­ces­sories on a reg­u­lar ba­sis. Of all the firearm deal­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go, on­ly 15 were heav­i­ly ac­tive and seemed to be favoured.

“In one case, Madam Speak­er, an in­di­vid­ual re­ceived a Deal­er’s Li­cence in 2020 and then pro­ceed­ed to im­port 11,810 firearms; 1,090,000 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion and 330,000 com­po­nent parts and ac­ces­sories,” Dr Row­ley read in Par­lia­ment.

Grif­fith re­ject­ed the ac­cu­sa­tions, ac­cus­ing the Prime Min­is­ter of us­ing par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege to spread lies. Fol­low­ing Grif­fith’s con­tro­ver­sial ex­it from the TTPS, two re­ports and an in­quiry were com­mis­sioned in­to the FUL li­cense sys­tem un­der his tenure.

The first was done by Re­tired As­sis­tant CoP Arthur Bar­ring­ton and Re­tired Chief of De­fence Staff, Rear Ad­mi­ral Hay­den Pritchard. The sec­ond re­port, the Craig Re­port, was done by a team of four re­tired Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers and four serv­ing po­lice of­fi­cers. The in­quiry was con­duct­ed by re­tired Jus­tice of Ap­peal Stan­ley John, ap­point­ed by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

In De­cem­ber 2022, Grif­fith suc­cess­ful­ly filed an in­junc­tion that pre­vent­ed Row­ley from lay­ing the John re­port in Par­lia­ment. Grif­fith said he was not al­lowed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond to the re­port’s find­ings and ex­pressed con­cern that the Prime Min­is­ter could make un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed claims us­ing par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege.

Com­ing out of the TTPS in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the FUL mat­ter, more than 25 charges have been laid. In 2022, five po­lice of­fi­cers were charged: PC­sChris Tirbinaie and Lyn­don Bish­op, two counts of so­lic­it­ing and re­ceiv­ing; Cpl Ka­reem Jamaldin, so­lic­it­ing $25,000 to ex­pe­dite an FUL; Sgt Swan­son, ten counts of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice; ASP Be­deau, five counts of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

Two civil­ians, Dil­lon and Mukesh Go­sine, were al­so charged. In ear­ly 2023, eight po­lice of­fi­cers were charged with con­spir­a­cy to mis­con­duct them­selves in pub­lic of­fice.

The firearm de­bate has been be­fore the courts sev­er­al times over the years, with busi­ness own­ers and in­di­vid­u­als lob­by­ing to arm them­selves against what they de­scribe as a grow­ing crim­i­nal threat.

In Jan­u­ary, the High Court or­dered Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Cristo­pher to de­cide on 33 FUL ap­pli­ca­tions by ear­ly May. The High Court al­so ruled that the CoP’s de­lay was un­rea­son­able and un­law­ful.

The CoP’s de­fence, among oth­er things, was that the in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the FUL sys­tem ex­ac­er­bat­ed a long-ex­ist­ing back­log.

Two weeks ago, an­oth­er two busi­ness­men were per­mit­ted to chal­lenge the CoP on the de­lay of their ap­pli­ca­tions. One of them with­drew his law­suit af­ter Hare­wood-Christo­pher agreed to de­cide on his ap­pli­ca­tion with­in six months.

Sev­er­al peo­ple al­so made sim­i­lar le­gal claims against for­mer act­ing CoP Stephen Williams. In 2018, the High Court or­dered Williams to grant a gun li­cense to na­tion­al shoot­er Robert Auer­bach who sued over a six-year de­lay in con­sid­er­ing his ap­pli­ca­tion.

The de­lays are noth­ing new. There has been a sub­stan­tial back­log in the firearm ap­pli­ca­tion process for some time. In Au­gust 2021, for­mer CoP Gary Grif­fith said there was a 50,000 ap­pli­cant back­log for FULs when he en­tered of­fice in late 2018. He said it would have tak­en 25 years, at his rate of FUL ap­provals, for all re­quests to be processed. Be­fore he was ap­point­ed CoP, he said there were an av­er­age of 400 firearms li­cens­es is­sued an­nu­al­ly.

The gun de­bate, rem­i­nis­cent of the US po­lit­i­cal scene, has even made its way to pol­i­cy.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has made Stand Your Ground pro-le­gal firearm pol­i­cy a key com­po­nent of the par­ty’s gen­er­al elec­tion push. The for­mer Prime Min­is­ter ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of hypocrisy, say­ing many min­is­ters can de­fend them­selves with le­gal guns but ob­ject to in­creased gun own­er­ship by the pub­lic.

The in­flux of guns in­to the re­gion has be­come a ma­jor is­sue in Cari­com’s re­la­tion­ship with the Unit­ed States. Cari­com has sought as­sis­tance from the US to crack down on gun man­u­fac­tur­ers ship­ping weapons il­le­gal­ly to the Caribbean.

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Be­lize, Ba­hamas, Ja­maica, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines and T&T joined a brief filed by Mex­i­co seek­ing to hold gun mak­ers re­spon­si­ble for fa­cil­i­tat­ing weapons traf­fick­ing across Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

In late 2022, the US formed a re­gion­al Crime Gun In­tel­li­gence Unit and ap­point­ed Micheal Ben’Ary as co­or­di­na­tor for Caribbean Firearm Pros­e­cu­tion, an ini­tia­tive aimed at in­creas­ing the num­ber of pros­e­cu­tions and con­vic­tions of firearms traf­fick­ers.