Rowley to give update on SSA scandal by end of June

THE Prime Minister says he will update the Parliament on "what is going on" with the Strategic Services Agency (SSA) by the end of June.

Speaking at a post-Cabinet press conference at Whitehall in the afternoon on June 13, Dr Rowley said the Parliament would soon be going into recess. He added that there would be no Parliament sittings in July, so all sittings must be done between now and the end of the month.

"It was always my intention, after the difficulty arose with the SSA and the work that has been done in dealing with that surprising difficulty, as chairman of the National Security Council – I think I need to say something to Parliament about what has gone on there or what is going on there, and I will try to do that somewhere before the Parliament goes to recess."

In May, former SSA director Major Roger Best, who was sent on administrative leave in early March, was arrested, along with pastor Ian Brown, a former special reserve officer assigned to the SSA, former security supervisor Portell Griffith and Sgt Sherwin Waldron, formerly assigned to the Special Operations Response Team.

This was the result of a two-and-a-half-month-long investigation into a wide range of allegations against SSA agents, including those surrounding the transfer of the weapons from the police to the SSA.

Three people were charged with criminal offences and released on bail.