What threat?

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel as­signed to the Par­lia­ment, as well as in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cers with­in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, say they are in the dark con­cern­ing any threats against Gov­ern­ment MPs or min­is­ters.

Speak­ing un­der the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty yes­ter­day, se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials who deal with the pro­tec­tion of the Par­lia­ment said they were on­ly made aware of sup­posed threats af­ter the dis­clo­sure was made by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie and was sub­se­quent­ly aired and pub­lished by the me­dia.

Dur­ing the de­bate on a bill to pro­vide for a pa­role sys­tem on Wednes­day, Je­re­mie re­vealed that a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­ci­dent sparked by a Bel­mont gang mem­ber last Fri­day, had trig­gered a high­er de­gree of pro­tec­tion of MPs in Par­lia­ment and cer­tain Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials had to be giv­en ad­di­tion­al pro­tec­tion.

That claim was backed up by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, the se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel told Guardian Me­dia that they were not alert­ed to any in­ci­dent that need­ed their at­ten­tion on Fri­day, nor were they in­struct­ed to beef up se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments.

Mean­while, TTPS in­tel­li­gence sources said they were aware of two gov­ern­ment min­is­ters who had in­creased po­lice of­fi­cers as­signed to them. This, how­ev­er, was due to the long work­ing hours of the min­is­ters and not be­cause of any sup­posed threat, they sources said.

Ref­er­enc­ing the triple mur­der in Bel­mont on April 7 that saw 23-month-old Aki­ni Kafi be­ing shot in the head dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, Je­re­mie said: “I’m au­tho­rised by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to say that last Fri­day, a mem­ber of one of those gangs in that com­mu­ni­ty sparked a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­ci­dent, such that all of us in this Par­lia­ment were pro­tect­ed to a high­er de­gree and cer­tain of­fi­cials in the Gov­ern­ment were giv­en ad­di­tion­al pro­tec­tion.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on Je­re­mie’s rev­e­la­tion, CoP Gue­var­ro said, “I can con­firm that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice re­spond­ed to a se­cu­ri­ty-re­lat­ed mat­ter last Fri­day, which re­quired en­hanced pro­tec­tive mea­sures at Par­lia­ment and for a small num­ber of Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. The TTPS act­ed out of an abun­dance of cau­tion and in ac­cor­dance with es­tab­lished na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols.”

He added: “Giv­en the na­ture of the mat­ter, and con­sis­tent with our oblig­a­tions un­der na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, I am not at lib­er­ty to dis­close op­er­a­tional de­tails of the in­ci­dent, the TTPS’ re­sponse or specifics re­gard­ing in­di­vid­u­als. What I can as­sure is that the TTPS con­tin­ues to ac­tive­ly as­sess all risks and will ad­just pro­tec­tive mea­sures as re­quired to en­sure the safe­ty of our na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions and our cit­i­zens.”

Guardian Me­dia wait­ed out­side the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, La Fan­tasie Road, St Ann’s, yes­ter­day, to mon­i­tor whether the in­creased se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures Je­re­mie to spoke to were still in op­er­a­tion.

How­ev­er, there ap­peared to be no signs of an in­creased se­cu­ri­ty de­tail for mem­bers at­tend­ing the Cab­i­net meet­ing.

Guardian Me­dia count­ed 12 min­is­ters en­ter­ing be­tween mid­day and 1.30 pm, when Cab­i­net nor­mal­ly be­gins. On­ly two of them had po­lice es­corts, as the oth­ers ei­ther drove them­selves or had a dri­ver on­ly. Those who drove them­selves parked on the com­pound while those who were dri­ven were dropped off and had their dri­vers park out­side.

Guardian Me­dia stopped three Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials - Phillip Alexan­der (Min­is­ter in the Hous­ing Min­istry), Clyde El­der (Min­is­ter in the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry) and David Nahkid (Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sport.

El­der said he could not say which of his Cab­i­net col­leagues were threat­ened, while Nahkid said he was un­both­ered by the threats, ad­vis­ing that Guardian Me­dia con­tact Je­re­mie for that in­for­ma­tion.

Asked if he was afraid based on the com­ments made by the AG, Nakhid said: “I fear Almighty God on­ly.”

Last year, Je­re­mie, in de­fend­ing the need for a State of Emer­gency, then said Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters’ lives were un­der threat. De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath were lat­er iden­ti­fied as the min­is­ters un­der threat then.

Yes­ter­day, when asked about the pub­lic be­ing scep­ti­cal about the threat, giv­en Je­re­mie’s com­ments last year, Nahkid said: “I think every day we go about our busi­ness in the in­ter­est of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. That is as­sur­ance enough. The peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go are safe by this Gov­ern­ment led by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.”

Mean­while, Alexan­der said the fact that Guardian Me­dia did not no­tice any in­crease in po­lice pres­ence around Gov­ern­ment mem­bers to sup­port the claim by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al was proof that the se­cu­ri­ty en­hance­ment was work­ing.

“The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is al­ways spot on; he is not a man for hy­per­bole. If he says some­thing is an is­sue, it is an is­sue. We are guid­ed.”

Asked if he felt fear­ful for him­self and his Cab­i­net col­leagues, Alexan­der said no.

“I trust the Gov­ern­ment that I am a part of.”