Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Pol­i­tics Re­porter

UNC Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al says the man­ner in which in­for­ma­tion is com­ing to the pub­lic on the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) is­sue can se­vere­ly di­min­ish con­fi­dence in what ought to be the pre­mier in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing agency at the fore­front of T&T’s an­ti-crime bat­tle.

Lutch­me­di­al said yes­ter­day that the per­ceived state of the SSA could now serve to em­bold­en crim­i­nals.

“What I read on this is­sue dai­ly is be­yond the scope of the imag­i­na­tion of the best spy nov­el and fic­tion writ­ers. It will em­bold­en crim­i­nals to know that these agen­cies are in such dis­ar­ray.

“We keep hear­ing about in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing as be­ing one of the strate­gies that’s sup­posed to tack­le T&T’s crime. Who is and who has been lead­ing the in­tel­li­gence dri­ve? This group of peo­ple now un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion? No won­der crime is sky­rock­et­ing!” she said.

On March 2, Ma­jor Roger Best, the SSA’s di­rec­tor, was sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave and for­mer am­bas­sador, re­tired brigadier An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer, was ap­point­ed act­ing di­rec­tor fol­low­ing what the Prime Min­is­ter de­scribed as trou­bling in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil by the TTPS. An au­dit of SSA’s per­son­nel, equip­ment and process­es was launched.

Since then, pas­tor Ian Brown has come for­ward say­ing that he was hired as a spy for the SSA af­ter be­ing made a Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cer. He al­so made sev­er­al star­tling claims and rev­e­la­tions about his work at the SSA and in the coun­try’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty sec­tor.

Po­lice al­so raid­ed Brown’s home and church com­pounds.

Brown claimed the cur­rent ac­tions are be­ing done to “pro­tect crim­i­nal­i­ty and a Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial” with “un­der­world ties”.

Lutch­me­di­al said this is why the Op­po­si­tion re­quest­ed that Par­lia­ment’s Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee con­vene a meet­ing to un­der­stand what was and is hap­pen­ing, “to give the pub­lic the as­sur­ance that par­lia­men­tar­i­ans on all bench­es are ap­prised of what is tak­ing place”.

“I con­sid­ered that part of my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as a sen­a­tor and JSC mem­ber. I’m deeply dis­ap­point­ed that oth­ers didn’t see it that way,” she said.

“There are al­so al­le­ga­tions that “se­nior Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials” are be­ing pro­tect­ed. How does the re­fusal of a par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee help with pub­lic per­cep­tion when these al­le­ga­tions are out there?

“The Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er made the point at the re­cent JSC meet­ing that pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence was crit­i­cal to her plan’s suc­cess. I think the pub­lic is los­ing con­fi­dence dai­ly.”

Lutch­me­di­al added, “The Op­po­si­tion will con­tin­ue ask­ing ques­tions in the pub­lic do­main if we aren’t al­lowed to do so through the par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee sys­tem.”

TTPS of­fi­cial: Very sen­si­tive mat­ter

Po­lice sources said the probe has widened, in­clud­ing in­to cer­tain in­ci­dents and oth­er mat­ters.

TTPS of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day that this is a very sen­si­tive mat­ter and it would be ir­re­spon­si­ble for the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to make any de­tailed state­ments at this time and she’d “do so when it’s ap­pro­pri­ate to do so”.

Brown al­leged his SRP post was con­tin­ued by TTPS over 2021, 2022 and 2023. On Tues­day, a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cial said Brown was rec­om­mend­ed to the TTPS by SSA’s Best. Oth­er po­lice of­fi­cials said Brown had come to their at­ten­tion on­ly re­gard­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tive pro­ce­dure for the con­tin­u­ance of the SRP post as re­quest­ed by SSA.

Mooni­lal wants Brown to call names

Mean­while, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal called on Brown to name al­leged min­is­ters with “un­der­world links”.

Mooni­lal said Brown must be pro­vid­ed with ex­tra State se­cu­ri­ty “since he may face im­me­di­ate threat and dan­ger from the very high rank­ing of­fi­cials that he has knowl­edge of”.

“Since pas­tor Brown’s safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty may be at risk for his coura­geous and pa­tri­ot­ic stand, he must seek a safe sanc­tu­ary in telling T&T what he can about the SSA’s en­quiries ... pas­tor Brown’s rev­e­la­tions are even more es­sen­tial since Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has re­fused to prop­er­ly ac­count for the dis­turb­ing re­cent events at the SSA.”

On Tues­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley called on the pub­lic to have a “lit­tle pa­tience” as the SSA probe pro­ceed­ed.