Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has been ac­cused of meet­ing in­car­cer­at­ed al­leged gang mem­bers short­ly be­fore he left the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to pur­sue a ca­reer in pol­i­tics.

Prison su­per­vi­sor Garth Gua­da, who is cur­rent­ly be­ing de­tained for al­leged­ly pro­vid­ing as­sis­tance to a gang un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE), based on a de­ten­tion or­der is­sued by Alexan­der, made the al­le­ga­tion through his lawyer, Krys­tal Primus, in a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent to Alexan­der this week.

In the cor­re­spon­dence, which was ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Primus claimed that her client’s de­ten­tion was based on a per­son­al vendet­ta Alexan­der had against him (Gua­da), af­ter he (Gua­da) re­port­ed Alexan­der’s al­leged clan­des­tine meet­ings to se­nior prison and po­lice of­fi­cers.

Primus said: “It is my client’s po­si­tion that your de­ci­sion was in­flu­enced by an im­prop­er mo­tive and a clear con­flict of in­ter­est due to a pre-ex­ist­ing re­la­tion­ship and per­son­al an­i­mos­i­ty be­tween you and my client, stem­ming from your re­cent vis­its to the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison and in­for­ma­tion that was com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the TTPS In­tel­li­gence Unit about your af­fairs.”

While Primus did not iden­ti­fy the dates of the al­leged meet­ings sought by Alexan­der, she claimed the re­quests were first made when Alexan­der, who was last as­signed to the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit, was on va­ca­tion leave ear­li­er this year.

Primus claimed that while Gua­da re­fused to fa­cil­i­tate un­su­per­vised vis­its with a mem­ber of the Rad­i­cal Is­lam­ic Crim­i­nal Gang, he did al­low Alexan­der to speak to a mem­ber in his pres­ence and re­port­ed what tran­spired to se­nior prison of­fi­cers.

She claimed the meet­ing re­quests con­tin­ued af­ter Alexan­der was elect­ed Tu­na­puna MP in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion and sub­se­quent­ly ap­point­ed to the Cab­i­net by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“On each oc­ca­sion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion was sent by my client to the ex­ec­u­tive of the T&T Prison Ser­vice and the DCP In­tel­li­gence of the TTPS, Ms Suzette Mar­tin, as it was my client’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to do so.”

She claimed that Gua­da worked close­ly with the TTPS in the past and had pro­vid­ed in­for­ma­tion on gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty in the prison.

Gua­da claimed that he had been threat­ened by crim­i­nal el­e­ments in the past and his home was tar­get­ed in a shoot­ing as a re­sult of his role as a se­nior prison of­fi­cer.

Primus re­quest­ed an ur­gent re­sponse as she threat­ened to file a law­suit against Alexan­der.

“You have abused the pow­ers grant­ed to you un­der the SoE,” Primus said.

“I will seek a de­c­la­ra­tion from the High Court that the pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­ders were void from in­cep­tion and will al­so claim for spe­cial and gen­er­al dam­ages, as well as all costs in­curred,” she added.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to seek a re­sponse from Alexan­der to the al­le­ga­tions as he was mak­ing his way to the Red House for a Par­lia­men­tary de­bate yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. How­ev­er, he evad­ed ques­tions while briskly walk­ing away.

Ac­cord­ing to the de­ten­tion or­der, which was signed on Au­gust 18 and gazetted last Tues­day, Gua­da, of Mal­abar, Ari­ma, was al­leged to be an as­so­ciate of the Rad­i­cal Is­lam gang led by al­leged gang leader and mur­der ac­cused Ra­jaee Ali.

The or­der against Gua­da stat­ed: “He has been con­firmed to be pro­vid­ing sup­port to oth­er gang lead­ers and mem­bers who are in­car­cer­at­ed in fur­ther­ance of their par­tic­i­pa­tion in, in­volve­ment in or com­mis­sion of vi­o­lent gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing the im­mi­nent­ly planned killing of pub­lic of­fi­cials in pub­lic spaces us­ing high-pow­ered ri­fles.”

The or­der said as a prison su­per­vi­sor, Gua­da “re­peat­ed­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed the breach of prison se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures for the ben­e­fit of the gang mem­bers and has been try­ing to en­gage in fur­ther breach­es at their cur­rent place of in­car­cer­a­tion (Teteron Bar­racks).”

Gua­da’s de­ten­tion or­der said this sit­u­a­tion made him a se­ri­ous threat to pub­lic safe­ty and his de­ten­tion at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre was nec­es­sary, as he has shown that he has the means and re­sources “to as­sist in­car­cer­at­ed per­sons to en­gage in gang ac­tiv­i­ty de­spite their present in­car­cer­a­tion and is a threat to the safe­ty of the pub­lic.”

Ac­cord­ing to the de­ten­tion or­der against Ali, he is ac­cused of ac­cess­ing “pro­hib­it­ed ar­ti­cles” while at the De­fence Force bases in Ch­aguara­mas.

Ac­cord­ing to a 2023 Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty Af­fairs MPow­er bio on Gua­da, the 50-year-old fa­ther of one now has 29 years’ ser­vice. The bio said his ex­pe­ri­ence as a prison of­fi­cer, cou­pled with “street sense,” af­ford­ed him the op­por­tu­ni­ty to gain knowl­edge and un­der­stand­ing about the caus­es and ef­fects of crim­i­nal be­hav­iour.

Gua­da is the founder of the male men­tor­ship ini­tia­tive Project Up­lift, a pro­gramme of­fered through the reg­is­tered NGO, Panora­ma Gar­dens Im­prove­ment Com­mit­tee.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia af­ter her client was first de­tained, Primus not­ed that he de­nied any wrong­do­ing.

Primus said: “Every­thing that is con­tained in the de­ten­tion or­der is con­test­ed. That is hearsay and pro­pa­gan­da. They know the truth. Let them come out and tell the truth about what hap­pened at the Teteron Bar­racks.”

She claimed Gua­da vis­it­ed the make-shift prison fa­cil­i­ty on the in­struc­tions of for­mer act­ing pris­ons com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe, who was sent on va­ca­tion leave last month. She chal­lenged claims made in the PDO, as she con­tend­ed Gua­da served as a dri­ver dur­ing the brief vis­it and stayed in the ve­hi­cle, while his col­leagues, who were se­nior to him, went in­side.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Gua­da chal­lenged his de­ten­tion be­fore the SoE Re­view Tri­bunal. His case came up for hear­ing on Thurs­day, but was de­ferred as he was not al­lowed to ac­cess the vir­tu­al hear­ing. Primus was al­so re­port­ed­ly blocked from meet­ing Gua­da on Wednes­day to pre­pare for the tri­bunal.