AKASH SAMA­ROO

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Fol­low­ing a sec­ond meet­ing with the Chief Jus­tice and mem­bers of the Ju­di­cia­ry over safe­ty con­cerns ex­pressed by state pros­e­cu­tors, Min­is­ter Kei­th Scot­land con­firmed that dis­cus­sions with DPP Roger Gas­pard will next take place. 

Scot­land met with CJ Ivor Archie yes­ter­day at 1.30 pm af­ter at­tor­neys told the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions that they were so trau­ma­tised by the bru­tal mur­der of a for­mer col­league, spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor Ran­dall Hec­tor, that they were fear­ful for their own lives and un­able to fo­cus on work. 

On Mon­day at the PNM’s par­lia­men­tary re­treat in To­ba­go,  Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to ask Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, Fitzger­ald Hinds when he planned to meet with the Ju­di­cia­ry or DPP to dis­cuss those con­cerns. How­ev­er, he re­fused to an­swer the ques­tion. 

But yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, Kei­th Scot­land con­firmed that a meet­ing be­tween Hinds and the Ju­di­cia­ry took place last week. 

He said Tues­day’s meet­ing was a fol­low-up. 

“So, this was not the first and it will cer­tain­ly not be the last,” Scot­land said. 

He would not di­vulge what was dis­cussed.  

Scot­land said a meet­ing with DPP Gas­pard is next on the cards. 

Sources said at­tor­neys as­signed to the DPP’s of­fice had been ad­vo­cat­ing for all pros­e­cu­tors to re­ceive se­cu­ri­ty de­tails that were nor­mal­ly on­ly af­ford­ed to se­nior mem­bers of the de­part­ment and a risk al­lowance. 

“I will be reach­ing out to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions as to any is­sues, be­cause as the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter said, once it is rea­son­able and re­quests are met, we would look to see how best we can give as­sur­ances and as­sis­tance,” Scot­land con­firmed. 

He added, “I know this is a very test­ing time for him (Gas­pard) as Ran­dall Hec­tor worked un­der him as a pros­e­cu­tor in the past but I will be reach­ing out to him to en­sure that I car­ry out my man­date ef­fi­cient­ly.” 

Asked if he had any re­as­sur­ances to give the DPPs staff in the in­ter­im, Scot­land said, “I have a man­date, and I will be car­ry­ing it out and not in the pub­lic do­main. I will give them the mes­sage when I meet with the learned DPP and I will give them any mes­sages through him.” 

He al­so said that he wants every­one to know that the “Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter is a man of his word.” 

Hec­tor was mur­dered af­ter leav­ing the Sev­enth-Day Ad­ven­tist Church at Stan­more Av­enue in Port-of-Spain on De­cem­ber 31, 2024. This prompt­ed DPP Roger Gas­pard to write to Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie high­light­ing the emo­tion­al state of his col­leagues. 

Gas­pard in­formed Archie that his staff would be ab­sent from courts across T&T for the re­main­der of that week. 

While at­tor­neys have ac­cept­ed there was no ev­i­dence yet to prove Hec­tor was tar­get­ed due to his role as a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor, they said his mur­der still high­light­ed their se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns.