Were snipers to be used in an assassination plot?

THE EDITOR: The recent arrest of Commissioner of Police (CoP) Erla Harewood-Christopher on an allegation that she committed the criminal offence of misbehaviour in public office by facilitating the Strategic Services Agency (SSA) to purchase two sniper rifles from a legal firearms dealer (AE Tactical Co) sent shock waves throughout the entire Caribbean region and more so the police, and by extension the country at large.

And this is specially so because it is well known by people in the know that Harewood-Christopher is a decent, law-abiding, ultra-conservative police officer who dots her “i's” and crosses her “t's” and bats within her crease in the performance of her duties.

Thus it is understandable that when the great majority of the population of TT believes that something is radically amiss and there might be more in the mortar than the pestle with the highly controversial arrest of our CoP, many questions must be asked and answers given to the citizens.

The following questions must be asked and answers given:

1. The National Security Council (NSC), headed by the Prime Minister, with the following members, among others, National Security Minister, Attorney General and CoP: How come the NSC (especially the PM) did not know that the then SSA director, retired Major Roger Best, had initiated the process in 2023 to obtain the necessary documentation from the CoP to acquire sniper rifles?

Did the right hand in the NSC not know what the left hand was doing.

Is it that the CoP is now the “fall guy” in the shocking revelation of the Prime Minister in Parliament in July 2024 – “the SSA’s stockpile of high-powered weapons and ammunition…was in order to replace the country’s political leadership”?

Sniper rifles are designed to kill or assassinate people from hundreds of yards away. Was Dr Rowley telling the country there was a plan to assassinate him and others in his cabinet in order to replace the country’s political leadership with people belonging to a certain religious cult?

I am only asking the questions which need to be answered.

2. And who/what agency paid the gun dealer for the two sniper rifles? Surely the Prime Minister would be informed of this scandal. And what was the Prime Minister's position in all these nefarious and clandestine occurrences?

There is a school of thought that the sniper rifles are not prohibited weapons under the Firearms Act and indeed ordinary citizens, as members of the SSA, could possess these firearms because they are not automatic weapons.

3. Administrative guidelines for police investigations as it now stands in TT is when a police officer is trying to discover whether and by whom a criminal offence has been committed, he/she is entitled to question any person (and this means CoP or National Security Minister, or even Prime Minister), whether suspected or not, from whom he/she thinks that useful information may be obtained.

And he/she is so entitled whether or not the person in question has been taken into custody, as long as he/she has not been charged with the offence or information that he may be prosecuted for it.

And the Judges Rule II states: As soon as a police officer has evidence which would afford reasonable grounds for suspecting that a person has committed a criminal offence, he shall caution that person or cause him/her to be cautioned before putting to him any questions, or further questions, relating to the particular offence.

The caution is in the following terms: “You are not obligated to say anything unless you wish to do so, but what you say may be put into writing and given in evidence.”

But the country now knows that the SSA was training specially selected people in the skill of the use of such weapons and really was it to replace the PNM government leadership or assassinate the PNM's political opponents?

I am only asking questions.

This is my personal views as a senior member of the criminal bar and not the views of the Criminal Bar Association

ISRAEL B RAJAH-KHAN SC

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