Elite police units lead probe into Hadeeds

Of­fi­cers of elite in­ves­tiga­tive po­lice units, in­clud­ing the Spe­cial Branch and the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU), are lead­ing en­quiries in­to al­le­ga­tions of a pur­port­ed con­spir­a­cy to com­mit mur­der, which led to the ar­rest of busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife Genevieve Hadeed, po­lice sources claimed yes­ter­day.

One of­fi­cer, who spoke with Guardian Me­dia on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said that in­ves­ti­ga­tors were still gath­er­ing ev­i­dence as the en­quiry con­tin­ued.

He, how­ev­er, not­ed that the two in­ves­tiga­tive units were the main fig­ures lead­ing the en­quiry.

“Thus far, no re­quests have been made for any fi­nan­cial records or sup­port from the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau, but that can change once as­sis­tance from these units are sought.”

The source not­ed that the TTPS ex­ec­u­tive was go­ing to “great lengths” to avoid the leak­age of in­for­ma­tion to the pub­lic, in­clud­ing brief­ing of­fi­cers from dif­fer­ent units on a need-to-know ba­sis, while lim­it­ing in­for­ma­tion to of­fi­cers on­ly at the rank of As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) and above.

When asked if he felt that there was suf­fi­cient grounds to jus­ti­fy the Hadeeds’ de­ten­tion, the source sim­ply ac­knowl­edged that the TTPS was be­ing guid­ed by le­gal of­fi­cers and at­tor­neys on how to pro­ceed with the en­quiry.

“I am con­fi­dent the in­ves­ti­ga­tors can stand by what­ev­er ev­i­dence is gath­ered; there are mul­ti­ple at­tor­neys as­sist­ing in of­fer­ing le­gal ad­vice and sup­port, so there’s a firm back­ing to en­sure that the mat­ter is done com­pre­hen­sive­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly.”

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to the TTPS Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit spokesper­son yes­ter­day, seek­ing de­tails on whether in­ves­ti­ga­tors were fac­ing any chal­lenges from peo­ple or in­sti­tu­tions who may form part of the en­quiry; how­ev­er, the spokesper­son sim­ply said that there were no fur­ther up­dates on the mat­ter at that time.

Ef­forts to get a re­sponse on the un­fold­ing de­vel­op­ment from Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der were un­suc­cess­ful up to late yes­ter­day evening.

—Shane Su­perville