PM declassifies report on SoE crime operations

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she has de­cid­ed, on the ad­vice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, to de­clas­si­fy and re­lease a re­port show­ing the re­sults of wider ac­tions tak­en by the pro­tec­tive ser­vices to re­duce crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty dur­ing the State of Emer­gency.

In a so­cial me­dia post on Sun­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said crime de­clined across all po­lice di­vi­sions dur­ing the six-month SoE pe­ri­od.

She said 5,802 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed dur­ing the pe­ri­od, with 3,552, or 61.2 per cent, charged.

How­ev­er, the fig­ure for ar­rests is 35 high­er than the 5,767 TTPS ar­rests re­port­ed by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day.

Alexan­der told Par­lia­ment that 13,108 op­er­a­tions were con­duct­ed dur­ing the 191-day SoE, re­sult­ing in 5,767 TTPS ar­rests. He al­so re­port­ed the re­cov­ery of 318 firearms and 6,414 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the wider ac­tions were car­ried out along­side op­er­a­tions tar­get­ing what she de­scribed as the pri­ma­ry threat.

She said her Gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue pur­su­ing or­gan­ised crime and peo­ple in­volved in the il­le­gal drug and firearms trade af­ter the SoE pe­ri­od.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so warned that crim­i­nals who con­tin­ue to ter­rorise law-abid­ing cit­i­zens would face what she de­scribed as “harsh and bru­tal mea­sures”.

She said the op­er­a­tional re­sults in the re­port were record­ed as at Day 191.