Al-Rawi questions Cabinet’s role in withdrawal of former PM’s security detail

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment PRO Faris Al-Rawi is rais­ing se­ri­ous con­cerns about the Cab­i­net’s de­ci­sion to with­draw the se­cu­ri­ty de­tail of for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young.

Speak­ing in his ca­pac­i­ty as a for­mer mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, Al-Rawi ques­tioned the le­git­i­ma­cy and ap­pro­pri­ate­ness of such a move be­ing tak­en by the Cab­i­net rather than law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties.

“I am sur­prised, as a for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al and as a for­mer mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, that the Cab­i­net of Trinidad and To­ba­go can make a de­ci­sion as to a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sue. I’m very sur­prised at that,” he said.

Al-Rawi said if the de­ci­sion had come from the of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, he would have had no ob­jec­tion, cit­ing Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro’s pri­or ex­pe­ri­ence in in­tel­li­gence.

“I would have no prob­lem if it is the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice af­ter there is a se­cu­ri­ty con­cern, ad­dress­ing the is­sue be­cause ob­vi­ous­ly, we have a sit­ting Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice who was a for­mer Spe­cial Branch of­fi­cer him­self and would un­der­stand these things,” he said.

How­ev­er, Al-Rawi took is­sue with the Cab­i­net di­rect­ly in­ter­ven­ing in op­er­a­tional mat­ters re­lat­ed to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

He al­so claimed there was a dou­ble stan­dard be­cause Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was af­ford­ed ex­tend­ed se­cu­ri­ty for the near­ly ten years of her tenure.

In Row­ley’s case, it was on­ly com­mis­sioned by Gary Grif­fith who broke ranks af­ter it was re­moved un­der then Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter John Sandy.

A for­mer se­nior of­fi­cial of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) warned that the Cab­i­net’s re­port­ed de­ci­sion to re­scind Young’s se­cu­ri­ty de­tail could set a dan­ger­ous prece­dent that dis­cour­ages pub­lic ser­vice and com­pro­mis­es na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols.

Speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, the re­tired of­fi­cer said stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures have long gov­erned how long for­mer high-rank­ing of­fi­cials are pro­vid­ed with state se­cu­ri­ty af­ter demit­ting of­fice.

“There’s pro­to­col, there’s pro­to­col ex­ist­ing, com­ing from the Spe­cial Branch and who spe­cialis­es in that area, so that there may be writ­ten pro­to­col that if some­one was the for­mer Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty or some main gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial, they may pro­vide ... they may keep pro­tec­tion for the Pres­i­dent for a six-month pe­ri­od, if it’s a prime min­is­ter out of of­fice, they may keep pro­tec­tion for him for a six-month or a year pe­ri­od. There are pro­to­cols.”

He said those time­lines could be ex­tend­ed if there is in­tel­li­gence point­ing to a cred­i­ble threat.

Asked whether it was ap­pro­pri­ate for a gov­ern­ment to in­struct the TTPS or Spe­cial Branch to de­vi­ate from those pro­to­cols, the for­mer of­fi­cer was un­equiv­o­cal.

“No, no. What I’m say­ing is, it’s bad prece­dent that is be­ing set and you have to re­mem­ber, to­day for me, to­mor­row for you, and if these pro­to­cols are set, these pro­to­cols are not set for a par­tic­u­lar par­ty. It’s a gen­er­al thing that will run across the board.”

He stressed that in­ter­fer­ing with es­tab­lished se­cu­ri­ty pro­ce­dures sends the wrong mes­sage to cur­rent and fu­ture pub­lic of­fice­hold­ers.

“So when, when you in­ter­fere with those things, you cre­ate a se­ri­ous dilem­ma, and then a mes­sage is be­ing sent. It may cause a per­son who may want to go in­to pub­lic life like that, not to go be­cause when they fin­ish with you, they’re done with you, they put you out of the school.

“Peo­ple will feel threat­ened not to par­tic­i­pate, so it could pro­vide a lot, a lot of neg­a­tiv­i­ty,” he said.

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia ex­clu­sive­ly re­port­ed that Young’s de­tail was pulled be­fore the stip­u­lat­ed time.

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so con­firmed that his se­cu­ri­ty de­tail was re­called about a week ear­li­er.