Nyree Alfonso: No evidence of legal guns falling into illegal hands

ATTORNEY Nyree Alfonso, who is a director of a gun-dealership run by her husband Towfeek Ali, told Newsday on June 4 there was no evidence whatsoever that lawfully-imported guns were being diverted into the hands of criminals.

She also denied there being any loss or theft of records at her husband's company, the Firearms Training Institute.

Replying to remarks made earlier in the day by Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds, Alfonso denied his allegations that Ali's firearms records were stolen and that the theft was never reported to police.

At a briefing at his ministry, Hinds had raised the possibility of diversion of legally purchased firearms and ammunition into illegal hands for criminal intent.

In a seeming criticism of gun proliferation, he also alleged that gun-dealers were only focused on making money, whereas he is focused on national safety.

Alfonso said Ali's case before Justice Devindra Rampersad (arising from a October 2022 audit) is sub judice.

However, she remarked that in 15 affidavits filed by the police, in reply to four filed by Ali's firm, no allegation of missing records was ever made, nor in any report on the police's raid/audit of her husband's company.

Alfonso said she is now mulling her legal options.

"From where did these allegations come," she asked. Alfonso said that under the law, the allegations could only come from the police audit, but had now seemingly been "a figment of a minister's beleaguered psyche." Saying audits were done of every dealer in Trinidad and Tobago, she scoffed, "Who did you arrest?"

She said, "No dealer has been charged, yet the streets are awash with blood. It is nothing to do with the legal (firearms) dealers."

Alfonso also characterised Hinds as being someone with an active imagination if he had told the US that a major amount of guns had been diverted from TT's registered gun-dealers into criminal hands.

The US has tightened gun sales to 36 countries deemed to be at high risk of diversion, pending ongoing consultations with respective governments of those countries.

She referred to the shooting at Pennywise Plaza, La Romaine, in September 2022, when three security guards were shot during a robbery, after which, a police shootout resulted in four bandits being killed and three AR 15 assault rifles recovered. Alfonso said the weapons were not something any local licensed firearms dealer could import.

Chiding Hinds, she claimed he was asking the US to help apply a plaster to a wound that was fantasy and a figment of his imagination.

"If there was a scintilla of evidence that any dealer had put firearms into the hands of criminals, they (dealers) would be arrested."

Alfonso said dealers must account for any firearm sold by matching it to the appropriate firearm users licence (FUL). The records of her husband's firm were intact since its founding in 1997.

On Hinds' criticism of gun-dealers being focused on profits, she said people invest to set up a business. Alfonso asked if she has taken all steps to set up a lawful business, what act of illegality could she be charged with?

Asked about gun proliferation in TT, she said a study by Caricom Impacs found the Caribbean had one of the world's lowest rate of ownership of legal guns, second only to China, Japan and South Korea. She quipped that Government was proud of the US putting TT on a list of 36 countries such as Yemen and Colombia with tightened access to legal guns.

Accusing the Government of a measure that made law-abiding citizens into a target for criminals, she also lamented current low stocks of ammunition for TT's lawful gun owners.

"You leave them at the mercy of the criminal element."