Purported Star Sabga audio leak sparks calls for SSA probe

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

For­mer min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty Gary Grif­fith is call­ing for an im­me­di­ate in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to how an au­dio record­ing—pur­port­ed­ly cap­tur­ing Syr­i­an busi­ness­woman Star Sab­ga mak­ing com­ments that have been de­scribed as an al­leged threat against Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar—was leaked, ar­gu­ing that the ap­par­ent breach of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency's (SSA) in­tel­li­gence sys­tems pos­es a greater threat than the con­tents of the record­ing it­self.

The is­sue has al­so drawn a re­sponse from Hous­ing Min­is­ter Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der, who said the record­ing "sound­ed au­then­tic" to him but de­clined to com­ment on whether its con­tents jus­ti­fied the le­gal ac­tion tak­en against those named un­til in­ves­ti­ga­tions are com­plet­ed.

Sab­ga has not been charged with any of­fence aris­ing from the con­tents of the record­ing, and the au­then­tic­i­ty of the au­dio has not been in­de­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fied by Guardian Me­dia.

In a state­ment on Sat­ur­day, Grif­fith said the au­then­tic­i­ty of the record­ing and whether any crim­i­nal of­fence had been com­mit­ted should be de­ter­mined by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and the courts.

"Whether the al­leged state­ments amount to trea­son, sedi­tion, con­spir­a­cy, a threat against a pub­lic of­fi­cial, or no of­fence at all, that is for the po­lice, the DPP and the courts to de­cide, not for politi­cians, so­cial me­dia com­men­ta­tors or the pub­lic," he said.

Grif­fith said his im­me­di­ate con­cern was how what ap­peared to be a con­fi­den­tial in­tel­li­gence in­ter­cept al­leged­ly ob­tained through a State in­tel­li­gence agency had en­tered the pub­lic do­main.

"The im­me­di­ate is­sue is sim­ple. How did an al­leged in­tel­li­gence in­ter­cept, sup­pos­ed­ly pro­tect­ed by the strictest se­cre­cy, en­ter the pub­lic do­main?" he asked.

He warned that if the record­ing orig­i­nat­ed from the SSA, its re­lease would rep­re­sent "one of the gravest breach­es of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and in­tel­li­gence con­fi­den­tial­i­ty in the his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go."

Ac­cord­ing to Grif­fith, in­tel­li­gence agen­cies are en­trust­ed with ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers to pro­tect the coun­try and not to "em­bar­rass, tar­get or as­sas­si­nate the char­ac­ter of cit­i­zens or ad­vance po­lit­i­cal in­ter­ests."

He said in­for­ma­tion ob­tained through law­ful in­ter­cep­tion must re­main se­cure and on­ly be dis­closed through prop­er le­gal chan­nels.

Grif­fith said the al­leged leak should con­cern every cit­i­zen be­cause it rais­es ques­tions about the se­cu­ri­ty of pri­vate com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

"If con­fi­den­tial ma­te­r­i­al can be re­moved from pro­tect­ed sys­tems and cir­cu­lat­ed pub­licly, no one can be as­sured that their calls, mes­sages or emails would not be sim­i­lar­ly abused," he said.

Grif­fith al­so ques­tioned whether the au­dio record­ing in­volv­ing two women, re­port­ed­ly used as part of the in­tel­li­gence sup­port­ing a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) against Sab­ga and Genevieve Hadeed, met the thresh­old of cred­i­ble in­tel­li­gence.

"If this was the ba­sis for cred­i­ble in­tel­li­gence for that in­car­cer­a­tion, it demon­strates the to­tal lack of in­tel­li­gence of the in­di­vid­ual who signed the PDO based on what was deemed cred­i­ble in­tel­li­gence," he said.

Grif­fith crit­i­cised the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process be­hind the PDO, say­ing the use of the record­ing as in­tel­li­gence raised ques­tions about the as­sess­ment of its cred­i­bil­i­ty.

Grif­fith stressed that the mo­tive be­hind the leak was sec­ondary to the breach it­self.

"Whether it was in­tend­ed to em­bar­rass some­one, in­flu­ence pub­lic opin­ion, ad­vance a po­lit­i­cal nar­ra­tive, un­der­mine an in­ves­ti­ga­tion or prove that no of­fence oc­curred, that is all ir­rel­e­vant. The breach re­mains the same. In­tel­li­gence ma­te­r­i­al must nev­er be­come po­lit­i­cal pro­pa­gan­da," he said.

He warned that such dis­clo­sures could com­pro­mise on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions, ex­pose in­tel­li­gence meth­ods, dam­age co­op­er­a­tion with lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners and erode con­fi­dence in both the SSA and the wider na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem.

Grif­fith called for an in­de­pen­dent, im­me­di­ate and trans­par­ent in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine whether the record­ing is au­then­tic, whether it orig­i­nat­ed from the SSA, who ac­cessed, copied or dis­trib­uted it, whether prop­er se­cu­ri­ty pro­ce­dures were fol­lowed, and whether any politi­cian, pub­lic of­fi­cial or in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cer au­tho­rised, fa­cil­i­tat­ed or ben­e­fit­ed from its re­lease.

He ar­gued that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion should not be con­duct­ed sole­ly by the agency whose sys­tems may have been com­pro­mised.

Those re­spon­si­ble for safe­guard­ing the ma­te­r­i­al, he said, should be re­moved from op­er­a­tional du­ties pend­ing the out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Grif­fith added that if the record­ing did orig­i­nate from the SSA, the agency's lead­er­ship should al­so be held ac­count­able and face dis­ci­pli­nary and crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions where ap­pro­pri­ate.

He al­so called on Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der, who has re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the SSA, to ex­plain how high­ly sen­si­tive in­tel­li­gence ma­te­r­i­al al­leged­ly reached the pub­lic.

"The coun­try de­serves an­swers, ac­count­abil­i­ty and im­me­di­ate cor­rec­tive ac­tion," Grif­fith said, while urg­ing a com­pre­hen­sive re­view of the SSA's lead­er­ship, se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems, ac­cess con­trols, over­sight mech­a­nisms and po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence.

Alexan­der: In­ves­ti­ga­tion must run its course

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der said the record­ing ap­peared gen­uine to him but stopped short of com­ment­ing on whether it jus­ti­fied the le­gal ac­tion tak­en against those named.

Asked whether he be­lieved the au­dio was au­then­tic, Alexan­der replied, "Yes, it sound­ed au­then­tic to me."

How­ev­er, when asked whether its con­tents war­rant­ed de­ten­tion or could be viewed as a threat to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, he said, "I would pre­fer not to an­swer that ques­tion un­til the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is com­plete and what­ev­er oth­er in­for­ma­tion that con­tributed to the state's de­ci­sions come to light."

Alexan­der said the record­ing nonethe­less ex­posed what he de­scribed as racial prej­u­dice with­in sec­tions of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

"What it ex­posed though, is the lev­el of race-based hate that ex­ists among per­sons who re­ly on those same races to hold up their busi­ness­es. If the East In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty boy­cotts the Syr­i­an com­mu­ni­ty, they look for that," he said.

Com­ment­ing on the leak of ma­te­r­i­al that re­port­ed­ly forms part of a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Alexan­der said con­fi­dence in the jus­tice sys­tem had been un­der­mined.

"The jus­tice sys­tem seems to have be­come a war zone where any­thing goes. Per­son­al mat­ters that I am in­volved in that have been sealed by judges were leaked and broad­cast, so I don't know what to say. Seems like it's open sea­son for guer­ril­la pol­i­tics now. Watch­ing a leader of Op­po­si­tion busi­ness burn a court or­der was dis­turb­ing," he said.

Alexan­der, how­ev­er, re­ject­ed Grif­fith's call for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion un­der the for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er's lead­er­ship, say­ing Grif­fith lacked the cred­i­bil­i­ty to com­ment on the mat­ter.

"Un­for­tu­nate­ly, Gary Grif­fith has lost all moral au­thor­i­ty to speak, and his slid­ing scale of ethics makes his opin­ion worth­less," Alexan­der said.

De­spite his crit­i­cism of Grif­fith, Alexan­der ex­pressed sup­port for the cur­rent Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and his ef­forts to re­form law en­force­ment.

"From a per­son­al view, I do not en­vy the Com­mis­sion­er and the hard work he and his team are do­ing to clean up the law en­force­ment ar­chi­tec­ture," he said.

Guardian Me­dia has reached out to Alexan­der for a com­ment and is await­ing his re­sponse.

Se­cu­ri­ty and Strate­gic Af­fairs leader and for­mer di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre Garvin Heer­ah has de­ferred com­ment pend­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Sab­ga re­mains de­tained un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der, while Genevieve Hadeed and her hus­band Do­minic Hadeed have been re­leased sub­ject to con­di­tions.