The Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF) is seek­ing to clear the air re­gard­ing the em­ploy­ment of Drugs Sou Sou (DSS) founder Ker­ron Clarke by re­veal­ing that he was in­struct­ed to take 83 days an­nu­al leave.

Clarke is a Lance Cor­po­ral.

In a me­dia re­lease, the TTDF said the leave was with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, “as a mat­ter of in­sti­tu­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty as TTPS (Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice) in­quires are on­go­ing.”

The TTDF added that it “cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly states that no mil­i­tary ser­vice per­son­nel are above the law.”

It said if any mem­ber of the De­fence Force is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed for al­leged crim­i­nal or civ­il mat­ters, pro­ce­dures un­der mil­i­tary law will be tak­en in sup­port of the in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

It al­so said it con­tin­ues to con­duct its in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions of the pos­si­ble in­volve­ment of mil­i­tary per­son­nel in the “Drugs Sou Sou” op­er­a­tions that may be con­sid­ered to be con­trary to “Good Or­der and Mil­i­tary Dis­ci­pline”.

The TTDF ex­plained that since the first raid on the DSS op­er­a­tions in Sep­tem­ber, it has been con­sis­tent in its sup­port to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice in the con­duct of crim­i­nal and/or civ­il in­quiries and has tak­en steps to elim­i­nate any in­ter­fer­ence in­to the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

It said it is ful­ly aware of the pub­lic sen­si­tiv­i­ty sur­round­ing the mat­ter and would con­tin­ue to take all nec­es­sary le­git­i­mate ac­tions

as a re­spon­si­ble and pro­fes­sion­al mil­i­tary or­ga­ni­za­tion.

Last week Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, while speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew said Clarke had been sent on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave but Clarke’s at­tor­ney said this was not the case and that he was grant­ed va­ca­tion.