Kevon Felmine

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment over the ar­rest of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher but yes­ter­day em­pha­sised that the mat­ter is sole­ly in the hands of the po­lice and the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

Speak­ing to re­porters about the de­vel­op­ment af­ter open­ing the Gran Chemin Fish­ing Cen­tre in Moru­ga, Row­ley said, “I am a lit­tle bit dis­ap­point­ed. What­ev­er has hap­pened that it has come to that—a se­nior of­fi­cer like that could have ap­par­ent­ly run afoul of the law. But I know that in Trinidad and To­ba­go, we are a na­tion gov­erned by law. There is pro­tec­tion for the in­no­cent. A per­son is in­no­cent un­til proven guilty, and due process is guar­an­teed. So it is a mat­ter for law en­force­ment, the po­lice, and the DPP.”

He stressed that no one in Trinidad and To­ba­go can be ar­bi­trar­i­ly charged or pros­e­cut­ed for crim­i­nal con­duct with­out the over­sight of the DPP’s of­fice. He not­ed that there are le­gal safe­guards in place, and every cit­i­zen is en­ti­tled to the pro­tec­tion of the law while al­so be­ing held ac­count­able for their ac­tions.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Suzette Mar­tin yes­ter­day con­firmed Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s ar­rest dur­ing a TTPS me­dia brief­ing, while TTPS le­gal of­fi­cer Za­heer Ali dis­closed that the ar­rest was linked to the il­le­gal pro­cure­ment of firearms and re­lat­ed ac­ces­sories in the on­go­ing Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices Agency (SSA) probe.

Ad­dress­ing crit­i­cism that the Gov­ern­ment played a role in Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s ar­rest, Row­ley firm­ly dis­missed such claims, clar­i­fy­ing that his Gov­ern­ment had noth­ing to do with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“I want to make some­thing very clear, be­cause this is a coun­try of con­fu­sion and mis­chief on the part of some. I have al­ready seen some peo­ple at­tempt­ing to as­cribe this as a Gov­ern­ment mat­ter. Let me just em­pha­sise to you, the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go does not iden­ti­fy any per­son to be­come the sub­ject of a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion, charge, or pros­e­cu­tion. That is a mat­ter for the po­lice, and the Gov­ern­ment has no role in that process. So let us just get that very clear, OK?” he stat­ed.

When asked whether the Gov­ern­ment might have to in­ter­vene at the par­lia­men­tary lev­el, Row­ley said it would de­pend on the out­come of the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion. If Hare­wood-Christo­pher is in­dict­ed, the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) would be re­spon­si­ble for tak­ing ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion. He re­it­er­at­ed that while the Gov­ern­ment has an in­ter­est in en­sur­ing the prop­er man­age­ment and su­per­vi­sion of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), ul­ti­mate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty lies with the in­de­pen­dent PolSC. (See page 6)

“We have an in­ter­est in it. The re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, first and fore­most, is the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion,” he said.

Re­gard­ing whether he had been briefed on the specifics of the ar­rest, Row­ley stat­ed that he did not know much more than what was al­ready pub­lic knowl­edge.

“I have an idea what it is, but it is not for me to pon­tif­i­cate on be­cause if it goes to a sit­u­a­tion where a charge is laid, it will then be­come a le­gal mat­ter. We are lim­it­ed, and we are not anx­ious to get in­volved in what is not re­al­ly our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

He main­tained that the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s ar­rest lies en­tire­ly with the po­lice, their in­ves­ti­ga­tions, their find­ings, and the guid­ance of the DPP.