Police search home of chief magistrate

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has con­firmed that law en­force­ment of­fi­cials car­ried out a search at the home of Chief Mag­is­trate Bri­an De­bideen, say­ing he will on­ly pro­vide “up­dates if and when nec­es­sary and ap­pro­pri­ate to do so”.

He said that the up­dates will on­ly be dis­closed “if such dis­clo­sure does not prej­u­dice the in­ves­ti­ga­tion or any en­su­ing le­gal pro­ceed­ing”.

At­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har, who is rep­re­sent­ing the Chief Mag­is­trate, con­firmed the search, adding that his client ful­ly co­op­er­at­ed with in­ves­ti­ga­tors and vol­un­tar­i­ly hand­ed over the elec­tron­ic de­vices.

“Yes, there was in fact a war­rant ex­e­cut­ed on the Chief Mag­is­trate …seek­ing to get his elec­tron­ic de­vices which he ful­ly co­op­er­at­ed in hand­ing over and we want to thank and con­grat­u­late the pro­fes­sion­al way in which the of­fi­cer has act­ed.

“The Chief Mag­is­trate is ex­treme­ly co­op­er­a­tive and will do every­thing to as­sist what­ev­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion and all we ask is for it to be com­pre­hen­sive and to be done quick­ly to re­move any doubts and neg­a­tive thoughts about the of­fice or the per­son,” Ra­mad­har told the Trinidad Ex­press news­pa­per, adding that they were look­ing for­ward to a swift res­o­lu­tion of the “lurk­ing sus­pi­cion” sur­round­ing the mat­ter.

Ra­mad­har said that no charges have been against the Chief Mag­is­trate, adding “there’s an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in progress and he’s con­fi­dent as I am, that at the end of which, all of it will be re­solved favourably.

“It is easy to make al­le­ga­tions in this coun­try, but that is why we al­ways en­cour­age a whole­some and com­pre­hen­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

Me­dia re­ports said that the war­rant was ex­e­cut­ed as part of a wider in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment agen­cies and that the al­leged of­fences be­ing probed in­clude mon­ey laun­der­ing, en­gag­ing in mon­e­tary trans­ac­tions in prop­er­ty de­rived from spec­i­fied un­law­ful ac­tiv­i­ty, fraud, pub­lic cor­rup­tion and bribery.

Gue­var­ro con­firmed that a “ju­di­cial­ly au­tho­rised search war­rant” was ex­e­cut­ed at the res­i­dence of a se­nior mem­ber of the ju­di­cia­ry and that it was “con­duct­ed un­der my di­rec­tion as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and co­or­di­nat­ed by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Natasha George, and al­so in­volved of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial Branch units op­er­at­ing un­der the port­fo­lio of the As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice re­spon­si­ble for white col­lar in­ves­ti­ga­tions, as well as the mul­ti-op­tion po­lice sec­tion.”

Gue­var­ro said that the search formed part of a broad­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing both lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment part­ners and that sev­er­al items con­sid­ered to have ev­i­den­tial val­ue had been seized.

“At this point, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is at a sen­si­tive stage, and thus, I am un­able to com­ment on the spe­cif­ic op­er­a­tional de­tails or any po­ten­tial fu­ture in­ves­tiga­tive steps. To do so could com­pro­mise the in­tegri­ty of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and any sub­se­quent ju­di­cial pro­ceed­ings.”

Gue­var­ro told the Ex­press news­pa­per that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion would be con­duct­ed im­par­tial­ly, re­gard­less of the of­fice or po­si­tion held by any in­di­vid­ual un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion. —PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC)