Govt vows to protect DPP; warns gangs against threats and intimidation

Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

The Gov­ern­ment has pledged sup­port for the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), vow­ing that gangs will not be al­lowed to in­tim­i­date law en­force­ment or the jus­tice sys­tem.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day dur­ing In­di­an Ar­rival Day cel­e­bra­tions in Pe­nal, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der said any threats di­rect­ed at the DPP or oth­er state in­sti­tu­tions would be met with a firm re­sponse.

“Once a threat is made, threats will be ad­dressed. Sim­ple,” Alexan­der said when asked about al­leged calls for gangs to unite and whether such state­ments con­sti­tut­ed a di­rect threat to the Of­fice of the DPP.

He stressed that the Gov­ern­ment stood firm­ly be­hind DPP Roger Gas­pard and the of­fice he oc­cu­pies, af­ter of­fi­cers on Wednes­day moved to quash a protest out­side his of­fice by send­ing in of­fi­cers from the Guard and Emer­gency Branch and ar­rest­ing three pro­test­ers.

“The Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry has put more mea­sures in place for the DPP’s of­fice and who­ev­er holds that of­fice,” Alexan­der said. “Com­ing from law en­force­ment, I have seen the con­tri­bu­tion that Roger Gas­pard has made to this coun­try. We are not go­ing to sit down and make you trem­ble.”

His com­ments came amid grow­ing con­cern fol­low­ing state­ments at­trib­uted to gang fig­ures af­ter re­cent pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al de­ci­sions that have sparked pub­lic de­bate.

Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Bar­ry Padarath, who sits on the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, said the Gov­ern­ment was treat­ing the mat­ter se­ri­ous­ly and was com­mit­ted to dis­man­tling crim­i­nal net­works.

“The Gov­ern­ment stands firm­ly be­hind the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter in the po­si­tion that she has tak­en in terms of a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to­wards the gangs in this coun­try,” Padarath said.

“For far too long, the PNM have ca­joled and hugged up these gangs, and that is why they feel so em­bold­ened and em­pow­ered. This Gov­ern­ment has tak­en a very strong stance.”

Padarath said the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and oth­er branch­es of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus were work­ing close­ly to ad­dress any threats.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly, there is a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cern, but we are work­ing with the TTPS and the oth­er arms of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus to en­sure that we cross our Ts and dot our Is,” he said.

The min­is­ter said the Gov­ern­ment had full con­fi­dence in the DPP’s han­dling of the high­ly talked-about Joshua Sama­roo case.

“This Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions is a man who dots his Is and cross­es his Ts,” Padarath said. “When the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions says to the coun­try that he has re­viewed this and he is com­fort­able, the Gov­ern­ment has every trust, faith and con­fi­dence that the DPP has done his work.”

He added that se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies were tak­ing no chances.

“We’re in a State of Emer­gency and we are tak­ing noth­ing light­ly. We are push­ing back at the crim­i­nals, we are push­ing back at the gangs, and we are say­ing to them, your days are num­bered.”

Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein echoed those sen­ti­ments, say­ing he stood “very, very strong­ly” be­hind Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­cent state­ments on crime and gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

“The Prime Min­is­ter has tak­en a very bold stance, not on­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go, but re­gion­al­ly, to en­sure that we have safe­ty in this par­tic­u­lar coun­try,” Ho­sein said. “I stand res­olute­ly be­hind our Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter.”

While de­clin­ing to com­ment di­rect­ly on the spe­cif­ic se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments sur­round­ing the DPP’s of­fice, Ho­sein said the Gov­ern­ment re­mained fo­cused on restor­ing law and or­der.

“The Con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides that there is a right to protest. It must be done with­in the four habits of the law,” he said, re­fer­ring to on­go­ing demon­stra­tions.

“We must en­sure that we take very strin­gent mea­sures to bring back Trinidad and To­ba­go to a place of safe­ty and peace.”

Ho­sein point­ed to re­cent an­ti-crime leg­is­la­tion and the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency as part of the Gov­ern­ment’s strat­e­gy to com­bat crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“This is a Gov­ern­ment that has a hands-on ap­proach, a hands-on Prime Min­is­ter. We are do­ing what it takes, what is nec­es­sary, to en­sure that peo­ple can feel safe.”