Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor, In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

The Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) held me­di­a­tion talks with the fired mem­bers of the dis­band­ed Tac­ti­cal Re­sponse Team (TRT) last Tues­day at the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s Sackville Street of­fices.

“This was to thrash it out be­fore it heads to court,” a for­mer mem­ber of the TRT told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

At the talk, which was chaired by SSA’s at­tor­ney Cherise Nixon on be­half of SSA di­rec­tor An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer, the TRT mem­bers were in­formed that while the team was no longer need­ed by the or­gan­i­sa­tion, they had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­turn to work in a dif­fer­ent role that matched their ex­pe­ri­ence, qual­i­fi­ca­tions, and the po­si­tion’s re­quire­ments.

How­ev­er, if they de­cide to re­join the or­gan­i­sa­tion, the mem­bers of the TRT team–all for­mer sol­diers from the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force–will have to go through the SSA’s hir­ing process once again which in­clude a poly­graph test. Guardian Me­dia was told that fol­low­ing the meet­ing on Tues­day with the team, in­di­vid­ual mem­bers were called on Wednes­day and of­fers were made to them to re­turn to em­ploy­ment.

All ten mem­bers of the TRT team were fired from the SSA on March 23 fol­low­ing a shake-up at the agency. Guardian Me­dia was told that one mem­ber was re­hired a week lat­er and is now based in SSA’s Cu­mu­to’s of­fice.

At the meet­ing, the TRT team was rep­re­sent­ed by two at­tor­neys on be­half of the union they joined to legal­ly chal­lenge their ter­mi­na­tion, the Na­tion­al Con­trac­tors Work­ers Union.

The for­mer of­fi­cers have been seek­ing le­gal coun­sel over their ter­mi­na­tion and were gear­ing up to sue the State since, de­spite al­le­ga­tions made, none of them have been charged with wrong­do­ing or mis­be­hav­iour in of­fice.

They told Guardian Me­dia that they will have to seek re­dress through the In­dus­tri­al Court while the man­agers, like for­mer di­rec­tor Ma­jor Roger Best, will have to go through the High Court.

Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day re­port­ed that while le­gal ac­tion has yet to be filed, sev­er­al of the agents were called to be re-in­ter­viewed for work.

In re­sponse, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds yes­ter­day is­sued a state­ment that “no ter­mi­nat­ed for­mer em­ploy­ee has been re­hired by the SSA.”

He added, “The rea­son for the es­tab­lish­ment of the un­ap­proved TRT and its op­er­a­tions dur­ing its ex­is­tence are the sub­ject of im­me­di­ate and ac­tive po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

The TRT Team

The TRT was as­sem­bled by for­mer di­rec­tor Ma­jor Roger Best be­tween April and May 2023. In a let­ter sent to mem­bers of the TRT dat­ed March 23, it not­ed that they were em­ployed as mem­bers of the Tac­ti­cal Re­sponse Team/Spe­cial Re­sponse Team.

“The TRTs/SRT’s pri­ma­ry func­tion was os­ten­si­bly to per­form a spe­cif­ic role with­in the agency’s se­cu­ri­ty ca­pac­i­ty. How­ev­er, the ex­act du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the TRT/SRT were nev­er clear­ly de­fined,” the let­ter said.

It said the rea­sons for the abo­li­tion of the TRT in­clude the fol­low­ing, “The TRT/SRT is not a unit which cur­rent­ly ex­ists on the agency’s or­gan­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture; The TRT/SRT does not cur­rent­ly ex­ist in the ap­proved agency’s or­gan­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture; The agency did not re­ceive the req­ui­site ap­proval for the cre­ation of the TRT/SRT; and The as­sumed tasks of the TRT/SRT were found to be a du­pli­ca­tion of the du­ties and func­tions of the agency’s se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers; which are recog­nised and ap­proved po­si­tions with­in the agency’s or­gan­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture.” The team re­ceived one month’s salary and a pro­rat­ed gra­tu­ity pay­ment.

“They treat­ed us so bad­ly. It has left a bit­ter taste. We have been treat­ed like en­e­mies of the State,” one of­fi­cer told Guardian Me­dia.

A part of the of­fi­cer’s dis­ap­point­ment over their ter­mi­na­tion is that their dis­charge cer­tifi­cate is now neg­a­tive which makes it hard­er for them to be em­ployed or ac­cess bank loans.

On Ju­ly 3, in Par­lia­ment, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley read in­to Hansard a state­ment on an au­dit con­duct­ed on the SSA by Phillips-Spencer. The au­dit re­vealed that the agency, un­der for­mer di­rec­tor Roger Best, amassed mil­i­tary-grade weapons and am­mu­ni­tion and op­er­at­ed a high­ly trained and mil­i­tarised so-called “Tac­ti­cal Re­sponse Unit.”

There were dis­turb­ing prac­tices of nepo­tism and op­por­tunism lead­ing to a con­cen­tra­tion of mem­bers of one church be­ing hired by the SSA, in­stances of dis­hon­esty, and deep de­cep­tion, and the SSA was in­creas­ing­ly in­ca­pable of se­cur­ing pub­lic trust.

“Such per­sons be­longed to a cult which was arm­ing it­self while preach­ing a doc­trine for trained mil­i­tary and para­mil­i­tary per­son­nel with a re­li­gious call­ing to be the most suit­able per­sons to re­place the coun­try’s po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship. They were ex­ert­ing high lev­els of in­flu­ence on the af­fairs of the agency to the detri­ment of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty,” Dr Row­ley said.

Dr Row­ley con­firmed that sev­er­al po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions were tak­ing place with re­gard to the SSA in­clud­ing mur­der.

At a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Hinds stressed that in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the SSA’s ac­tiv­i­ties were con­tin­u­ing and that there was no statute bar­ring mur­der.

28 work­ers ter­mi­nat­ed

Dr Row­ley had said that “28 em­ploy­ees of the SSA were ter­mi­nat­ed; ei­ther for vi­o­la­tions of the SSA Act and Reg­u­la­tions, or for anom­alous re­cruit­ment or faulty pro­mo­tion process­es and prac­tices.” Among those em­ploy­ees are: for­mer di­rec­tor Best, Pas­tor Ian Brown, the self-de­clared spy for the SSA and his son who was al­so em­ployed at the agency, and for­mer deputy di­rec­tor of ad­min­is­tra­tion Joanne Daniel.

Both Brown and Best are el­ders of Brown’s church, the Jerusalem Bride Church.

So far, the State has on­ly been able to lay one set of charges against for­mer SSA em­ploy­ees–Brown, Sgt Sher­win Wal­dron and Su­san Portell-Grif­fith were charged with the “trans­fer­ring” of four “pro­hib­it­ed firearms” from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to the SSA.

While Best was de­tained and ques­tioned, he was sub­se­quent­ly re­leased as there was no ev­i­dence to charge him with mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice. Best, who has been silent since he was sus­pend­ed from the agency on March 2 and sub­se­quent­ly fired on May 18, in his first state­ment to Guardian Me­dia said, “The men­tion of me lead­ing a coup or any form of desta­bil­i­sa­tion is not on­ly pre­pos­ter­ous but lu­di­crous.”

For his part, Pas­tor Brown told Guardian Me­dia that his church was not a cult.