CoP: Witness protection programme 100% successful

Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith said Trinidad and Tobago is one of the few countries in the world that has a 100 per cent success rate in witness protection.

Griffith was speaking at a town meeting with Santa Rosa residents on Thursday at Santa Rosa Government Primary School.

“Not one witness under the witness protection programme has ever been harmed…and not even been injured,” said Griffith.

He said there is a difference between a state witness and those in the witness protection programme.

“If the person decides to leave the witness protection programme because he wanted to go to a Carnival fete, like what happened 20 years ago with Clint Huggins, as he is killed, there is very little we can do.”

Huggins, a member of the Special Reserve Police, testified against drug lord Dole Chadee and eight others in 1994.

“The state witness is very difficult,” said Griffith, adding easy access to bail is one of his concerns in protecting state witnesses.

He said when a perpetrator is charged and goes to court and receives $5,000 bail, witnesses become unwilling to testify, and sometimes disappear, when their attacker comes back to silence them.

“This is why I have been so vociferous to ensure that there is a better standard to deal with those who are arrested, so there is not that easy revolving door.

“I know there is a due process…but I will continue to fight for the rights of law-abiding citizens, because when you are a victim, you don’t want to know that the person…is back out on the streets waiting for their case to start. That is where we have the problem of witnesses becoming victims.”