Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Months af­ter she led an in­quiry in­to al­le­ga­tions of crim­i­nal con­duct against for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, DCP In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions Suzette Mar­tin is her­self now be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

This was con­firmed by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, where he re­vealed that the al­le­ga­tions arose from Mar­tin’s in­volve­ment in the de­ten­tion of firearms deal­er and train­er Brent Thomas in Bar­ba­dos in Oc­to­ber, 2022.

Thomas, 61, was de­tained while await­ing a flight from Bar­ba­dos to the US, re­turned home and lat­er charged with three counts of pos­ses­sion of firearms and four counts of pos­ses­sion of ex­plo­sives.

Asked about the na­ture of the al­le­ga­tions against Mar­tin, Gue­var­ro said, “The firearm deal­er would have in­di­cat­ed cer­tain acts were car­ried out against him and he felt this was bor­der­ing on crim­i­nal con­duct. I would not want to pro­nounce on ex­act­ly what is that crim­i­nal con­duct be­cause an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is un­der­way and we will be cer­tain that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, when com­plet­ed, will un­cov­er what­ev­er crim­i­nal con­duct ex­ists, so I don’t want to pro­nounce on it.”

Gue­var­ro said he act­ed prompt­ly and with due process in mind, not­ing that he was ap­point­ed on June 18 and re­ceived the re­port on the same date.

Asked if Mar­tin was the on­ly per­son be­ing con­sid­ered in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Gue­var­ro said he pre­ferred not to dis­close how many peo­ple were with­in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion’s scope.

Gue­var­ro not­ed that while there have been chal­lenges over lead­er­ship and the pub­lic’s poor per­cep­tion of the TTPS, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter the ar­rest of Hare­wood-Christo­pher in Feb­ru­ary, he said the ser­vice was firm­ly com­mit­ted to ful­fill­ing its man­date of pro­tect­ing and serv­ing.

“The lead­er­ship of the TTPS is firm in its re­solve to en­sure we car­ry out our du­ly con­sti­tu­tion­al man­date to pro­tect and serve the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We have no rea­son to have any doubt in our minds that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be one that is trans­par­ent.”

While he said there was no time­line for com­ple­tion of the en­quiry, Gue­var­ro said Mar­tin would con­tin­ue in of­fice.

Asked if he felt hav­ing her on ac­tive du­ty would ham­per the in­tegri­ty of the en­quiry, Gue­var­ro main­tained he was con­fi­dent in the abil­i­ty of the in­ves­tiga­tive team led by ACP Curt Si­mon. He main­tained that on­ly the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) has the au­thor­i­ty to sus­pend po­lice of­fi­cers.

How­ev­er, when con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, PolSC chair­man Dr Wen­dell Wal­lace said he was un­aware Mar­tin was be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed and pre­ferred not to com­ment un­til he re­ceived fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.

“I have had no in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing that at this point in time. How­ev­er, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice is very much cor­rect. If you have an in­ves­ti­ga­tion on­go­ing in­to a DCP, or com­mis­sion­er of po­lice, the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice can­not sub­tend such per­son, that falls with­in our re­mit.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, DCP Mar­tin said she wel­comed the en­quiry and as­sured that even as she con­tin­ued to serve as DCP, she would not ob­struct in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

“I wel­come the en­quiry. I have been and will con­tin­ue to ful­ly co-op­er­ate with all law­ful in­ves­tiga­tive process­es.”

She said she was con­fi­dent the in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be con­duct­ed with due process.

“The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice op­er­ates un­der the high­est stan­dards of pro­fes­sion­al­ism, trans­paren­cy and the rule of law, so the fact that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion is launched, we’ll see how that goes.”

The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) yes­ter­day con­firmed they con­duct­ed a sep­a­rate in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Mar­tin’s in­volve­ment in Thomas’ ar­rest on April 27, 2023 and his re­turn to T&T.

The au­thor­i­ty de­clined to com­ment fur­ther, cit­ing the “in­tegri­ty of the ju­di­cial process.”

Mean­while, for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith said any in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Mar­tin should al­so probe who gave the TTPS the or­ders to act.

“No mem­ber of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice can leave our ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters to be in­volved in any op­er­a­tion, in­ves­ti­ga­tion or any­thing un­less they have the req­ui­site ap­proval and au­thor­i­ty, per­mis­sion and di­rec­tion from the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty,” Grif­fith said.

“So, if at any time this mat­ter with Brent Thomas be­ing ab­duct­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion has to be broad­ened to in­clude who gave Suzette Mar­tin the au­tho­ri­sa­tion.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so con­tact­ed TTPS So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) pres­i­dent, act­ing ASP Gideon Dick­son, for com­ment, but he said he was not aware of the de­vel­op­ment and pre­ferred to ver­i­fy the in­for­ma­tion be­fore re­spond­ing.