Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Three for­mer mem­bers of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) were charged with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice last night.

Po­lice con­firmed that dis­missed for­mer di­rec­tor Ma­jor Roger Best was not charged though, as in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct against him are on­go­ing.

How­ev­er, Best's re­li­gious ad­vi­sor, self-pro­fessed spy Pas­tor Ian Brown, along with Su­san Portell-Grif­fith, a for­mer se­cu­ri­ty su­per­vi­sor, and Sgt Sher­win Wal­dron, a tac­ti­cal op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer, were charged.

The men, along with Best, were ar­rest­ed last week be­fore they were re­leased on the week­end.

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that fol­low­ing le­gal in­struc­tions, in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers moved to charge the trio last evening.

In March, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­vised that Best would be sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave be­fore ap­point­ing for­mer US Am­bas­sador, re­tired Brigadier Gen­er­al An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer, to take over the agency. Phillips-Spence is still un­der­tak­ing a probe of the SSA's op­er­a­tions.

Best was fired on Sat­ur­day, three days af­ter he and the three oth­ers were ar­rest­ed and ques­tioned in re­la­tion to state-is­sued firearms.

At a me­dia brief­ing on Sun­day on his re­turn from In­dia, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment was "blind­sided" by al­le­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing with­in the SSA.

“Some of what has been un­earthed in this in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been quite trou­ble­some, with im­pres­sions of crim­i­nal con­duct," the PM said.

He added: "We ex­pect that we will rec­ti­fy and re­turn the agency to its pur­pose.”