By Prior Beharry
OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar is calling on the police officers involved in the Brent Thomas affair to seek legal advice.
In a release on Saturday, she said that on Friday in Parliament, the UNC called on Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds to answer if he had been involved in giving approval to any of the officers involved in Thomas abduction.
Hinds replied “Again, again! Why is the member for Barataria/San Juan joining the member for Naparima in being that pedestrian? I have just answered. I have given no such approval.”
The state has appealed against the April 25 order of Justice Devindra Rampersad who granted constitutional relief and damages to firearms dealer Thomas whom the judge said was abducted while in Barbados and handed over to Trinidad and Tobago police. He was then brought back to Trinidad on a Regional Security System plane and charged for the illegal possession of firearms.
Persad-Bissessar said, “Fitzgerald Hinds has now publicly claimed in our Parliament that he had no idea how police officers ASP Birch, Senior Supt Suzette Martin and Cpl Joefield were all able to commandeer a CARICOM aircraft, to forcibly and illegally detain and abduct Brent Thomas from Barbados. Both the Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago governments have said the Brent Thomas abduction is illegal.
“Most concerning are allegations that members of the hierarchy of the TTPS are coercing and attempting to convince the officers who are implicated in this abduction to modify their reports to protect the minister who may have been directing them all along.”
She said, “I again call on the officers implicated in the illegal Brent Thomas abduction: do not trust Keith Rowley, Fitzgerald Hinds and the hierarchy of the TTPS. It is time to put yourselves, your families, and the reputation of the TTPS first. Do not continue to believe those who are washing their hands of you, seek legal advice, tell the country the truth and let the chips fall where they may.
“This is a lesson to all other TTPS officers who want to do the dirty work of the PNM. The UNC will win the next general election and the truth will come to light. Truth and justice will prevail.”
