Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Al­though se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers have de­nied re­ports of a fi­nan­cial probe in­to the ac­qui­si­tion of sniper ri­fles by the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA), sources with­in an in­ves­tiga­tive unit in­sist that a re­view of fi­nan­cial records is high­ly like­ly.

On Mon­day, sources close to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion said of­fi­cers from the White Col­lar Crime Bu­reau are like­ly to meet with of­fi­cials from the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) to dis­cuss a pos­si­ble fi­nan­cial an­gle in the on­go­ing probe in­to al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct by sus­pend­ed po­lice com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

How­ev­er, at a me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin de­nied re­ports that a fi­nan­cial probe was un­der­way. “The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice is not con­duct­ing any in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Christo­pher’s fi­nan­cial records,” he said. “I have asked all per­sons con­cerned, I have done all of the in­ves­ti­ga­tions, speak­ing to my se­nior of­fi­cers in the ACP White Col­lar and DCP In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, and it is ab­solute­ly clear to me that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice is not con­duct­ing any such in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

Asked for fur­ther com­ment on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Ben­jamin said the po­lice have done all that was need­ed and are await­ing fur­ther ad­vice from the DPP’s of­fice. A source in an in­ves­tiga­tive unit said a re­view of fi­nan­cial doc­u­ments and trans­ac­tion records was dis­cussed on mul­ti­ple oc­ca­sions at meet­ings in ear­ly Feb­ru­ary.

The of­fi­cer main­tained that there was the pos­si­bil­i­ty of re­view­ing the doc­u­ments be­cause of al­le­ga­tions made as the probe in­ten­si­fied in­to the pro­cure­ment of the weapons. The source added that the al­le­ga­tions of a crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy re­quired that they view all an­gles, in­clud­ing records of fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions.

The source said that while a meet­ing has not yet been held, it will take time giv­en the pro­to­col re­quired in seek­ing ac­cess to such doc­u­ments. “The pos­si­bil­i­ty of it is very re­al; how­ev­er, in­ves­ti­ga­tors un­der­stand the knot,” he said.

“You go to a High Court judge who grants what is called a pro­duc­tion or­der,

which is sim­i­lar to a search war­rant. How­ev­er, the in­ves­ti­ga­tors aren’t search­ing any­thing. The in­sti­tu­tion served, whether it’s a bank, a fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion, a busi­ness, or a min­istry, has to pro­duce the doc­u­ments be­ing sought.

“These in­sti­tu­tions then have sev­en days to pro­duce the doc­u­ments as they are legal­ly bound to do so. All of this takes time.” An­oth­er source said the re­view of fi­nan­cial records was crit­i­cal to un­der­stand­ing the events lead­ing up to the al­leged crime be­ing com­mit­ted.

“Tech­ni­cal­ly he (the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice) is cor­rect be­cause it hasn’t been done as yet, but there is cer­tain­ly a fi­nan­cial com­po­nent to the in­quiry that needs to be ex­plored. “In any con­spir­a­cy in­volv­ing pub­lic of­fi­cials, as is be­ing al­leged in this sit­u­a­tion, it’s nec­es­sary to look at fi­nan­cial records to de­ter­mine whether there were any ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and to es­tab­lish a time­line of events. “So it’s in­ac­cu­rate to sug­gest that there is no fi­nan­cial as­pect to the in­quiry be­ing con­sid­ered at least.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s at­tor­ney Pamela El­der, SC, said she was un­aware of any probe in­to fi­nan­cial records. She said it was “odd” for the po­lice to take that stance af­ter her client’s ar­rest in late Jan­u­ary.