Union: Acquitted cops due for promotion, back pay

AT LEAST two of the six police officers acquitted for the murders of three friends in Barrackpore in 2011 will receive promotions as soon as they return to duty, said president of the TT Police Social and Welfare Association (TTPSWA) Gideon Dickson on Friday.

While Newsday was not able to get the names of the two officers to be promoted, Newsday understands that all the officers will be returned to full salaries and the TTPSWA will also recommend that all of the officers be given immediate vacation.

“All these officers would have been on interdicted salary from 2011 to present,” Dickson said.

“That means that they would not have been getting their full salaries. The officers’ earned leave would have been suppressed.

"So what normally happens is that upon matters like this, you afford the officers an opportunity to proceed on leave. We have a reintegrating process in which they are given training to get back up and running, but first things first, is them getting an opportunity to acclimatise with their family.”

The officers, Newsday confirmed, will also be beneficiaries of the recently negotiated four per cent wage increase and corresponding back pay promised by government to be paid by Christmas.  

Dickson was elated at the news of the six officers being acquitted of all charges on Friday, in relation to the 2011 police-involved killing of Allana Duncan, Keron Fernando Eccles and Abigail Johnson, shot dead by police on July 22, 2011.

Sgt Khemraj Sahadeo and PCs Renaldo Reviero, Glenn Singh, Roger Nicholas, Safraz Juman and Antonio Ramadhin were acquitted of all charges after spending more than a decade on trial for the killings.

“It is indeed a good day for the TTPS. Police are not above the law, but this shows at the end of the day due process was done. The officers were able to withstand the time it took to get to this point. I know for the officers and their family this is a time for thanksgiving and jubilation.”

Asked whether the verdict and the resulting procedures for reintegration would improve public confidence in the police, Dickson said the public should have confidence in the entire justice system, not just the police.

“First, let me offer my condolences to the family of those who died on that day, no words, no economic support could bring them back. But while they would have lost three people, we would have lost six or seven people that day. Their services were retired. Their lives were put in limbo.

“Public trust cannot be in the police alone, but in the entire justice system.” Dickson added.

“It cannot be that you only looking at what happens to the police and being judgemental, because you also have the situation where it happens to the average man and you need to be judgemental the same way.

"We are not gloating, because at the end of the day, irreparable damage was done both to the families of those who perished and that and officers and their families to operate in stagnated conditions.”

He said the case proved that due process in the criminal justice system was alive and well, and said that while the public might have its own opinion on the matter, justice was done in this case.

“When we test the mettle of our judicial system, when it speaks to due process and the evidence to convict or exonerate a person, the court of public opinion was not on trial. It was the evidence and officers, and their families and even the organisation was on trial.

This is a vindication that due process is still alive and well.”