New threat against MPs

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­ci­dent sparked by a gang mem­ber last Fri­day, trig­gered a high­er de­gree of pro­tec­tion of MPs in Par­lia­ment and cer­tain Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials had to be giv­en ad­di­tion­al pro­tec­tion, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie re­vealed yes­ter­day.

“I’m au­tho­rised by the Com­mis­sion­er to say (this),” Je­re­mie added in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

The sit­u­a­tion was al­so con­firmed yes­ter­day by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro.

AG Je­re­mie re­vealed the sit­u­a­tion dur­ing the de­bate on a bill to pro­vide for a pa­role sys­tem. It was lat­er passed with amend­ments, in­clud­ing from the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

Speak­ing af­ter Op­po­si­tion MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les launched an at­tack on De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, over his com­ments link­ing the mass mur­ders in Bel­mont and Mor­vant dur­ing de­bate on the bill last Fri­day, AG Je­re­mie de­clared that he was mak­ing a to­tal de­fence of Sturge.

Say­ing the Gov­ern­ment is bring­ing ab­solute force to bear on crim­i­nals, Je­re­mie added, “This coun­try—right now—is at war. We’ve de­clared a State of Emer­gency, we’ve re­newed it and we’ve de­clared an SoE again. That’s our de­c­la­ra­tion of war...,” he said.

Je­re­mie said Gov­ern­ment’s tar­gets in the cur­rent “war” are gangs.

“Crim­i­nal en­ter­pris­es and those gangs, I agree with my To­co col­league (Sturge), are some­times lo­cat­ed in Belle Eau Road, Ser­ra­no Road, where he and I have roots (Young) has none. My aunt and un­cle still live there and (Sturge’s) al­so.”

Je­re­mie said the PNM knew that gangs are al­so lo­cat­ed in West­moor­ings, Good­wood Park and “some oth­er places. I wouldn’t say who are the rep­re­sen­ta­tives for those ar­eas.”

The AG added, “Those who wish to send copies of Par­lia­ment’s Hansard (record­ing) to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice ... this is what I’m go­ing to say now: I’m au­tho­rised by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to say that last Fri­day, a mem­ber of one of those gangs in that com­mu­ni­ty sparked a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­ci­dent, such that all of us in this Par­lia­ment were pro­tect­ed to a high­er de­gree and cer­tain of­fi­cials in the Gov­ern­ment were giv­en ad­di­tion­al pro­tec­tion.”

He added, “I spoke to the CoP and he said I could say that.”

Je­re­mie said as in every war, T&T would have bad days and quite re­cent­ly, there have been a cou­ple “tru­ly ter­ri­ble days” where in­no­cent chil­dren -a nine-year-old girl and two-year-old ba­by- were killed. He said Gov­ern­ment griev­ed with all fam­i­lies.

Say­ing Sturge was en­ti­tled to speak about Belle Eau and Ser­ra­no Roads, Je­re­mie added, “I’m mak­ing a com­plete de­fence of (Sturge). He grew up in Ser­ra­no and Belle Eau Roads...he lived there, he knows what it’s like to be a cit­i­zen of Belle Eau Road as I do... The (PNM) don’t know that. No red sneak­ers, cap and red jer­sey could make you a cit­i­zen.”

He said the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) had been in Gov­ern­ment a short time and the mur­der rate dropped; there­fore, it was a his­tor­i­cal fact that Sturge, the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter (Roger Alexan­der) and Gov­ern­ment had demon­stra­ble suc­cess in the war against gangs, some of whom he claimed were PNM “friends.”

Dis­miss­ing crit­i­cism of Sturge, Je­re­mie said it was a fact that what Sturge said: that Young was na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter un­der the PNM, that pan­dem­ic-rid­den T&T was un­der lock­down due to the PNM’s ap­proach­es, yet Young was still un­able to re­duce the mur­der rate then.

He said the at­tain­ment of peace now would be through war, since no al­ter­na­tive was left. Je­re­mie said the pa­role bill, a strate­gic part of Gov­ern­ment’s ini­tia­tives, was a way avoid re­peat of­fend­ers.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on Je­re­mie’s claims, CoP Gue­var­ro said, “I can con­firm that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice re­spond­ed to a se­cu­ri­ty-re­lat­ed mat­ter last Fri­day, which re­quired en­hanced pro­tec­tive mea­sures at Par­lia­ment and for a small num­ber of Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. The TTPS act­ed out of an abun­dance of cau­tion and in ac­cor­dance with es­tab­lished na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols.

“Giv­en the na­ture of the mat­ter, and con­sis­tent with our oblig­a­tions un­der na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, I am not at lib­er­ty to dis­close op­er­a­tional de­tails of the in­ci­dent, the TTPS’ re­sponse or specifics re­gard­ing in­di­vid­u­als. What I can as­sure is that the TTPS con­tin­ues to ac­tive­ly as­sess all risks and will ad­just pro­tec­tive mea­sures as re­quired to en­sure the safe­ty of our na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions and our cit­i­zens.”

Pri­or to Je­re­mie’s de­fence of his col­league, Op­po­si­tion whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les had said the PNM sup­port­ed the bill, but he had called for it to be ex­am­ined by a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee.

Gon­za­les slammed Sturge’s state­ments dur­ing last Fri­day’s de­bate of the bill, when Sturge said the re­cent Mor­vant and Bel­mont mass mur­ders were linked and claimed Port-of-Spain North MP Stu­art Young had knowl­edge of what he was say­ing.

How­ev­er, Gon­za­les said the TTPS was prob­ing the mur­ders, “and to an ex­tent, the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er” and the TTPS had dis­tanced them­selves from Sturge’s com­ments, as TTPS had since in­di­cat­ed they had no ev­i­dence the two mur­ders were con­nect­ed.

Gon­za­les, deem­ing Sturge “reck­less,” not­ed Sturge’s sub­se­quent com­ments that two in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cers gave him in­for­ma­tion that what he said in Par­lia­ment last week was cor­rect.

Op­po­si­tion PNM MP Stu­art Young called out Gov­ern­ment on the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­ci­dent which AG Je­re­mie spoke about.

Gov­ern­ment MPs said the is­sue last Fri­day was the same day that In­dia’s Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Sub­rah­manyam Jais­hankar had vis­it­ed the Par­lia­ment. But they gave no de­tails.

PNM MPs, how­ev­er, said they were un­aware of a se­cu­ri­ty mat­ter, were not told of any in­ci­dent oc­cur­ring or said they saw “noth­ing un­usu­al.”

Young said, “I cer­tain­ly was not aware of any in­ci­dent to which the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al re­ferred. What is wor­ry­ing is the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and the loose man­ner in which they throw about al­leged mat­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“One might ask, and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al needs to say, ex­act­ly whether it is that gangs in Trinidad and To­ba­go are now so brazen un­der the UNC that the Par­lia­ment was un­der a threat that we were not in­formed of.” —With re­port­ing by An­na-Lisa Paul