Five po­lice of­fi­cers re­cent­ly cleared of ex­tor­tion and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice charges are prepar­ing to sue the State for dam­ages.

Rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, the of­fi­cers, who were ac­cused of so­lic­it­ing bribes dur­ing a search op­er­a­tion in Five Rivers, Arou­ca, had their cas­es dis­missed af­ter Mas­ter Sarah De Sil­va ruled that the State failed to meet the re­quired ev­i­den­tiary thresh­old, de­spite mul­ti­ple op­por­tu­ni­ties to strength­en its case.

Five of­fi­cers were freed on No­vem­ber 20, while the re­main­ing two were cleared on Mon­day.

In that case, of­fi­cers Keenan Williams, Evans Mitchell, Kevin Gomez, Lat­i­fa Leza­ma, Jabari Mc In­tyre, Keiran Morang, and Nicholas Raghoo­bar were charged for al­leged­ly so­lic­it­ing and re­ceiv­ing a bribe from an Arou­ca cou­ple. 

The of­fi­cers re­port­ed­ly found cam­ou­flage cloth­ing, mar­i­jua­na, and am­mu­ni­tion dur­ing a search of the cou­ple’s home at Five Rivers, Arou­ca, and al­leged­ly so­licit­ed a $30,000 bribe and a quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na to not pros­e­cute them.

Ramb­ha­jan re­vealed that her clients plan to sue for breach­es of their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, in­clud­ing un­law­ful de­ten­tion and ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion. “They were pros­e­cut­ed for an of­fence that did not have suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to war­rant a charge in the first place,” she said. “We have al­ready re­quest­ed the tran­script of pro­ceed­ings as part of our prepa­ra­tion.”

Ramb­ha­jan added, “The po­ten­tial grant­i­ng of no­tices of dis­con­tin­u­ance by the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions high­lights that the ev­i­den­tial stan­dard was not met for my five clients to be charged. They were charged sim­ply be­cause they were part of the po­lice par­ty that ex­e­cut­ed the war­rant, which was ridicu­lous.”

This case, brought un­der the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings) Act (AJI­PA) which was im­ple­ment­ed in De­cem­ber 2023, re­sult­ed in mul­ti­ple hear­ings but ul­ti­mate­ly un­der­scored se­ri­ous de­fi­cien­cies in the state’s ap­proach to such pros­e­cu­tions, Ramb­ha­jan said.

Ramb­ha­jan crit­i­cised the po­lice’s lack of due dili­gence be­fore lay­ing charges, stat­ing, “To charge and de­tain where there is no ev­i­dence is to abuse a cit­i­zen’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.”

The at­tor­ney al­so point­ed to short­com­ings with­in the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB), the unit cre­at­ed to ad­dress cor­rup­tion with­in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

“The PSB has been falling short in al­most every mat­ter. The le­gal ad­vice they re­ly on does not bear out in court,” she said.

“The im­pact such a unit ought to make ver­sus what they are ac­tu­al­ly do­ing are miles apart.” Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ex­pert Garvin Heer­ah de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as a glar­ing ex­am­ple of sys­temic weak­ness­es in law en­force­ment and jus­tice, call­ing for ur­gent re­form through the cre­ation of a Na­tion­al Vet­ting Agency (NVA). Heer­ah ex­plained that re­cur­ring is­sues like in­ad­e­quate in­ves­ti­ga­tions, poor ev­i­dence gath­er­ing, and al­le­ga­tions of in­ter­fer­ence have not on­ly led to case dis­missals but have al­so erod­ed pub­lic con­fi­dence in the TTPS.

He ar­gued that an in­de­pen­dent NVA could ad­dress these short­com­ings by con­duct­ing thor­ough vet­ting of po­lice of­fi­cers, mon­i­tor­ing con­duct, and en­sur­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“The NVA could pre­vent these sys­temic fail­ures by en­sur­ing ev­i­dence is col­lect­ed prop­er­ly and pro­tect­ing cas­es from un­due in­ter­fer­ence,” Heer­ah said. “This is about re­build­ing con­fi­dence in law en­force­ment and sup­port­ing of­fi­cers who are com­mit­ted to up­hold­ing the law.”

Heer­ah em­pha­sised that es­tab­lish­ing the NVA would al­so help re­duce cor­rup­tion and pro­vide much-need­ed sup­port for eth­i­cal of­fi­cers work­ing in an en­vi­ron­ment plagued by in­ef­fi­cien­cies and mis­trust.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed said the dis­missals high­light a deep­er dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the coun­try’s jus­tice sys­tem.

“There is a clear need for a ro­bust ap­proach to ad­dress­ing the cracks in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem,” Mo­hammed not­ed.

“For too long, sys­temic prob­lems have been shelved or in­ad­e­quate­ly ad­dressed, and the cracks are now widen­ing, lead­ing to grow­ing frus­tra­tion among cit­i­zens.”

Mo­hammed agrees that mean­ing­ful re­form is ur­gent­ly need­ed.

Mean­while, ques­tions sent to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, and the TTPS about these de­vel­op­ments re­mained unan­swered up to late yes­ter­day. 

PCA calls for ac­count­abil­i­ty and ac­tion amid ris­ing com­plaints

Head of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty David West says there is a need for more ac­count­abil­i­ty in the ju­di­cial process. Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, he said in­ves­ti­gat­ing po­lice of­fi­cers as well as state pros­e­cu­tors have ma­jor roles to play in the jus­tice sys­tem, and the cul­ture of ad­journ­ments has to be ad­dressed in or­der to curb de­lays in le­gal mat­ters.

This state­ment from West comes af­ter 14 po­lice of­fi­cers were freed on crim­i­nal charges with­in the past week. He said po­lice of­fi­cers must as­sist the di­rec­tor of pub­lic pros­e­cu­tions by do­ing their jobs in a time­ly man­ner.

West al­so said de­ci­sive ac­tion must be tak­en by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, fol­low­ing the re­port in­to the col­lapse of le­gal mat­ters against sev­er­al po­lice of­fi­cers.

“I think the COP has to deal with this mat­ter swift­ly dis­ci­pli­nary process swift­ly and come to a con­clu­sion swift­ly,” he said.

The PCA di­rec­tor added that com­plaints against po­lice of­fi­cers are steadi­ly in­creas­ing.