Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

As the Low­er House yes­ter­day ap­proved the as­cen­sion of Ju­nior Ben­jamin to act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­mit­ted that he pro­vid­ed the po­lice with in­for­ma­tion that even­tu­al­ly made its way to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

How­ev­er, Dr Row­ley went to great lengths to un­der­score that Gov­ern­ment had no hand in the events lead­ing up to this point.

Dur­ing a brief emer­gency sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the Prime Min­is­ter be­gan the mo­tion to ap­prove Ben­jamin in a som­bre tone.

“This is one of these days when the Gov­ern­ment wish­es it did not have this re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

The PM read the let­ter the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) wrote to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo on Jan­u­ary 31, 2025, in­form­ing her of its de­ci­sion to nom­i­nate Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (DCP) Ju­nior Ben­jamin to act­ing CoP and for As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Curt Si­mon to be el­e­vat­ed to DCP.

The let­ter said Ben­jamin and Si­mon hold the num­ber one po­si­tions on the Or­der of Mer­it list. There­fore, Row­ley said this made him sim­ply a mes­sen­ger sent by the Con­sti­tu­tion.

He sought to make it “pel­lu­cid­ly clear” that this op­er­a­tion had noth­ing to do with his Gov­ern­ment.

“From the ori­gin where a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which by it­self has ab­solute­ly noth­ing to do with the Gov­ern­ment, not knowl­edge, not con­sent, not op­er­a­tions, not re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, be­cause we all know es­pe­cial­ly in this House, and es­pe­cial­ly in the minds of many peo­ple who have been com­ment­ing on this mat­ter, that the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go has no role what­so­ev­er in di­rect­ing the po­lice as to who they should go af­ter, who they should in­ves­ti­gate, how the in­ves­ti­ga­tion should go, how they should ar­rest or not ar­rest,” Row­ley said.

Row­ley added that he had nev­er seen any mer­it list from the PolSC that had Ben­jamin at the top and there­fore had to trust the in­de­pen­dent body and as­sume Ben­jamin was the best per­son for the job.

The PM said the last time a de­bate of this na­ture came to the House, the Op­po­si­tion rec­om­mend­ed that the PolSC should pro­vide Par­lia­ment with ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion but that had not come in­to force.

“I am still re­quired to act blind­ly and the on­ly peo­ple who would have as­sessed Mr Ben­jamin on this mat­ter in the last few days is the PolSC. And there­fore, I have noth­ing to add or sub­tract, to im­prove or to den­i­grate.”

But Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal chal­lenged Row­ley on his at­tempt to as­sure the House the Gov­ern­ment was not in­volved in this mat­ter.

Mooni­lal ref­er­enced a re­cent news­pa­per ar­ti­cle and said, “DCP Mar­tin writes Row­ley, the Mem­ber for Diego Mar­tin West, on sniper probe. PM, tell us what you know. The Gov­ern­ment is in­volved in this busi­ness,” Mooni­lal de­clared, as his col­leagues thumped their desks in ap­proval.

Mooni­lal al­so sought to re­mind the House that Row­ley, in 2022, con­firmed he met with for­mer PolSC chair Bliss Seep­er­sad to dis­cuss its mer­it list.

The PM was ea­ger to re­spond to these al­le­ga­tions.

Fol­low­ing Mooni­lal’s speak­ing time, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds was poised to speak next but Row­ley in­di­cat­ed to Hinds that he would speak again, forc­ing the min­is­ter to give way.

Dr Row­ley con­firmed he did have re­cent com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the po­lice but un­der­scored he was du­ty-bound to do so.

“Up un­til the po­lice wrote me, and I think that cor­re­spon­dence came to me on Sun­day or Mon­day, ask­ing me in my ca­pac­i­ty as chair­man of the NSC, whether I can an­swer a ques­tion the po­lice want­ed an­swered. And it had to do with the work of the com­mis­sion, hav­ing grant­ed cer­tain ap­provals. That was the sum to­tal of what was asked of me.”

He added, “I got the NSC to find the ap­pro­pri­ate an­swer and I have since sub­mit­ted that to the po­lice for on­ward trans­mis­sion to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.”

The ques­tions sent to the PM by DCP Mar­tin asked if Hare­wood-Christo­pher or Roger Best had no­ti­fied the NSC about the SSA’s in­tent to pro­cure the ri­fles and if so, was it ap­proved?

The oth­er ques­tion asked if Hare­wood-Christo­pher in­formed the NSC that she had ap­proved the SSA’s re­quest to pro­cure the ri­fles through li­censed firearm deal­er Luke Hadeed.

But Barataria/San Juan MP Sad­dam Ho­sein was not con­vinced and again blamed Gov­ern­ment for what he de­scribed as the cur­rent tur­moil faced by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

This prompt­ed Row­ley to rise to his feet again to de­fend his ac­tions.

“The PM of T&T, as chair­man of the NSC, is du­ty-bound, in law, set­tled by the Privy Coun­cil, to make avail­able to the PolSC any in­for­ma­tion or per­ti­nent mat­ters which has to do with the re­mit of the PolSC.”

Row­ley said it was wicked and ma­li­cious for the Op­po­si­tion to sug­gest Gov­ern­ment had a role to play in this mat­ter.

Both mo­tions to ap­prove Ben­jamin as act­ing CoP and ACP Si­mon to DCP were sub­se­quent­ly ap­proved unan­i­mous­ly.

Gary: Cops made a big blun­der

Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith ques­tioned why DCP Mar­tin de­cid­ed it was prop­er to write to the PM at all in this mat­ter.

Break­ing his si­lence on the mat­ter, Grif­fith ques­tioned if the in­ves­ti­ga­tion against Hare­wood-Christo­pher was a “fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion in a des­per­ate at­tempt to say look we made a blun­der but let’s see if we can find some­thing to tar­get an in­di­vid­ual.”

The for­mer CoP made it clear it was not im­prop­er for the Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices Agency (SSA) to own a sniper ri­fle.

“A sniper ri­fle is not a pro­hib­it­ed weapon be­cause it is not an au­to­mat­ic weapon. So, if it is that the le­gal de­part­ment of the Po­lice Ser­vice fig­ure that this is their game of ‘a ha we catch yuh’ be­cause she (Hare­wood-Christo­pher) al­lowed sniper ri­fles to be brought in­to coun­try for the SSA, be­cause it is seen as a pro­hib­it­ed weapon, that is a lie,” Grif­fith said.

Grif­fith said on­ly the De­fence Force and TTPS have the au­thor­i­ty to bring in pro­hib­it­ed weapons. He said it was al­so not im­prop­er for the SSA to own weapons once they are pro­hib­it­ed ri­fles.

Grif­fith said even some su­per­mar­ket own­ers can own sev­er­al firearms.

As such, he said the TTPS’ at­tempt to make a case out of this shows ei­ther a lack of com­pe­tence or ig­no­rance of the law on their part.

Say­ing a politi­cian has no au­thor­i­ty to ap­prove or de­ny weapons en­ter­ing the coun­try, Grif­fith asked of DCP Mar­tin, “So, what are you get­ting the PM in­volved in this bac­cha­nal for?”