Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

De­spite fac­ing an “ob­sta­cle” in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the con­duct of DCP In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions Suzette Mar­tin, in­ves­ti­ga­tor ACP Curt Si­mon says the en­quiry is still un­der­way.

In June, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro con­firmed that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was ini­ti­at­ed in­to Mar­tin’s con­duct in the ar­rest of firearms deal­er Brent Thomas in Bar­ba­dos in Oc­to­ber 2022.

Mar­tin was one of sev­er­al of­fi­cers in­volved in Thomas’ ar­rest.

How­ev­er, High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad ruled in favour of Thomas, not­ing that his rights were con­tra­vened, de­scrib­ing his ar­rest as an “ab­duc­tion,” and a “shame­ful blot” on the coun­try.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Si­mon said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be fol­lowed “as far as we (in­ves­ti­ga­tors) can go,” but main­tained that un­less po­lice were able to over­come an un­named “ob­sta­cle,” the mat­ter may not reach con­clu­sion.

“I want to in­form the pub­lic that with­out over­com­ing that ob­sta­cle, I’m cer­tain there can be no de­ci­sive out­come re­al­ly pend­ing any fur­ther de­vel­op­ments and I say no de­ci­sive out­come in terms of the fact that you may not be able to see any prefer­ment of any­thing and which may lead to a can­cel­la­tion of every­thing we are do­ing.”

Asked if he could at least pro­vide an es­ti­mat­ed time­line as to when the en­quiry could be com­plet­ed, Si­mon said part of the en­quiry in­volved re­ceiv­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion from peo­ple out­side the coun­try, which could take time. He not­ed that such cor­re­spon­dence may take be­tween three to four weeks.

Since the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Mar­tin’s con­duct was re­vealed in June, she has re­mained on ac­tive du­ty in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

When ques­tioned about this, Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro main­tained on­ly the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) had the au­thor­i­ty to place of­fi­cers on sus­pen­sion, main­tain­ing such de­ci­sions were out of his re­mit.

Guardian Me­dia made re­peat­ed at­tempts to con­tact chair of the PolSC Dr Wen­dell Wal­lace for com­ment on why Mar­tin re­mained on ac­tive du­ty and if they were con­cerned over the in­tegri­ty of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, but re­ceived no re­sponse up to press time yes­ter­day.