Sturge confirms Brent Thomas file missing from ministry

Asha Javeed

Con­sul­tant Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge says his col­league, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, made an er­ror when he said there were no miss­ing files on firearms deal­er Brent Thomas at his min­istry.

“Min­is­ter Alexan­der is re­fer­ring to a crim­i­nal file, which is not what I was re­fer­ring to,” Sturge told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

A crim­i­nal file would be the re­mit of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), and be lodged there un­til pros­e­cu­tion and not with Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty.

In­stead, Sturge said he was re­fer­ring to what was the min­istry’s file - which would have in­clud­ed all min­is­te­r­i­al sup­port and re­quests for the ar­rest and re­turn of Thomas to T&T by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice from Bar­ba­dos on Oc­to­ber 5, 2022, in­clud­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion to Caribbean IM­PACS and the Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sys­tem (RSS) for the per­mis­sion to use an air­craft for the trip. An RSS air­craft was used to trans­port four TTPS of­fi­cers to Bar­ba­dos to bring Thomas back to T&T. How­ev­er, T&T is not a mem­ber of the RSS.

When he joined the min­istry, Sturge said he was try­ing to as­cer­tain who grant­ed per­mis­sion at a min­is­te­r­i­al lev­el to make such a re­quest to the RSS, when he re­quest­ed the file and dis­cov­ered it was miss­ing.

On Sun­day, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that the State’s file on Thomas, lodged at the for­mer Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty (now Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty), was miss­ing but at that time, Sturge de­clined to say more on the mat­ter.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Alexan­der told the Ex­press that there are no miss­ing files at this min­istry with re­spect to Thomas, as the min­istry does not keep files re­lat­ed to crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

But Guardian Me­dia nev­er re­port­ed that there were miss­ing crim­i­nal files.

“Rel­a­tive to the miss­ing talk that is cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia and oth­er me­dia hous­es, I don’t know which crim­i­nal file that they are speak­ing about be­cause on no oc­ca­sion does crim­i­nal files be hand­ed to any min­istry or kept by any min­istry,” Alexan­der said.

Alexan­der al­so said he had com­mu­ni­cat­ed with Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro on this mat­ter and “he too, we are con­fused as to which crim­i­nal file that the pub­lic is speak­ing about that is re­port­ed­ly miss­ing.”

“Crim­i­nal files are sent to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and back to law en­force­ment. The min­istry does not keep crim­i­nal files. So, hav­ing said that, the file or the mat­ter in­volv­ing Mr Brent Thomas is in the hands of law en­force­ment,” Alexan­der told the Ex­press.

On Sun­day, Guardian Me­dia con­firmed from Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), Op­er­a­tions, Curt Si­mon that the po­lice probe in­to the con­duct of its of­fi­cers was still on.

On Oc­to­ber 5, 2022, Thomas was tak­en from his ho­tel by mem­bers of Roy­al Bar­ba­dos Po­lice Force while en route to the US to seek med­ical treat­ment, fol­low­ing his ar­rest days ear­li­er (Sep­tem­ber 29), with­out any charges be­ing laid, in Trinidad. The Bar­ba­dos po­lice had been pro­vid­ed with copies of six ar­rest war­rants for Thomas on charges of be­ing in pos­ses­sion of grenades and au­to­mat­ic ri­fles.

Thomas was de­tained by Bar­ba­dos po­lice and then hand­ed over to three TTPS of­fi­cers - DCP Suzette Mar­tin, Nigel Birch and Cor­po­ral Joe­field - at the Grant­ley Adams In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on war­rants that he had pro­hib­it­ed weapons in his pos­ses­sion.

“The mat­ter is still be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed. We are deal­ing with cer­tain is­sues as it re­lat­ed to Caribbean IM­PACS, RSS and state­ments from of­fi­cers in Bar­ba­dos and all of those must go through Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty,” Si­mon said.

He said he has not yet in­ter­viewed DCP Mar­tin on the mat­ter, ex­plain­ing that he is very care­ful with his in­ves­ti­ga­tions and col­lat­ing his in­for­ma­tion be­fore deal­ing with a mat­ter.

Last Fri­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her Cab­i­net would con­sid­er es­tab­lish­ing a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) in­to the Thomas af­fair, but the po­ten­tial cost of such an ex­er­cise will be a key fac­tor in de­ter­min­ing whether it, in fact, pro­ceeds.

On April 25, 2023, Thomas scored a con­sti­tu­tion­al vic­to­ry in the coun­try’s courts against the State (un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion) from High Court judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad, who ruled Thomas’ de­ten­tion and re­moval amount­ed to an abuse of process.

While the PNM had ap­pealed the judge’s rul­ing, on Sep­tem­ber 16, 2025, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie has since opt­ed to dis­con­tin­ue the mat­ter, apol­o­gised to Thomas and said he will en­ter in­to good faith ne­go­ti­a­tions re­gard­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al dam­ages and costs both in the High Court and Court of Ap­peal.

Af­ter Ram­per­sad’s rul­ing, the state filed two ap­peals in the name of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and a sep­a­rate ap­peal by the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions. While the mat­ters were ar­gued in Ju­ly 2024, the court had re­served its rul­ing.

Dur­ing the Ju­ly hear­ing, Pe­ter Knox, KC, lead at­tor­ney for the state, con­ced­ed Thomas’ ar­rest in Bar­ba­dos was un­law­ful, ad­mit­ting the process should have fol­lowed ex­tra­di­tion pro­ce­dures. How­ev­er, he ar­gued the High Court went too far by stay­ing crim­i­nal charges, which in­clud­ed pos­ses­sion of pro­hib­it­ed weapons.